


Terawatt Outlaws

by arcaladiwoompa



Series: Terawatt Outlaws [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternia, Battleship Condescension, Dream Bubbles, Gen, Helmsman, Illustrated, M/M, No Sgrub AU, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-26 16:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 62
Words: 65,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2658563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcaladiwoompa/pseuds/arcaladiwoompa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sollux has been strung up in the Helmsblock alongside his Ancestor.  This was the Empire's first and last mistake."</p><p>-Anonymous Prompt</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OwlFlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OwlFlight/gifts).



> Warning for slight body horror. It's inevitable with a Helmsman fic.
> 
> Don't let the romantic relationships in the tags scare you off if they aren't your thing. They are not the focus of the story.

You are old. Really old. Old as balls. Older than any yellow blood was ever meant to be. You have more wrinkles than a tub of raisins. Your carapace, once shiny and black, has become dulled and scuffed from your excessive age. Your joints creak, or maybe that’s your hull. You are so old, you can’t even remember what your name used to be. If you think about it really hard, you recall that your name may have had something to do with a constellation. It’s so ironic you could laugh like a madman. You are the Starship Condescension, and you are its helmsman.

Your life is full of dualities and contradictions. It has been both awful and, at times, awe inspiring. You see through a thousand cameras while an impenetrable grey mist has settled over your biological eyes. You can barely feel or control your body, but you can sense and attend to all the minutiae of the starship’s inner workings. Your muscles have atrophied from a lack of movement. Yet at the same time, you can move _really fast_. You would only be as fast as light if you hadn’t learned how to cheat, slingshotting through gravitational wells and taking shortcuts through dreambubbles, wormholes, alternate dimensions and pocket universes. You have single handedly visited every habitable planet visible from Alternia’s most powerful telescopes and charted more besides. You are both a nearly infinite fount of knowledge and a terrible force of destruction. You have no choice.

Over a million sweeps you have seen history echo through countless repetitions. You have personally ferried the Empress to the head of every crackdown on a burgeoning revolution in her empire since the death of the Signless. You blow up an average of 14,547 enemy targets each sweep, including spacecraft, planet-side vehicles, buildings, artificial satellites, and the occasional asteroid. You have been coerced- sometimes with mind control, sometimes with a potent intravenous drip of mind honey- into scorching entire cities filled with civilians if they are suspected of harboring even one important dissident, or simply to serve as an example. Each time, video feeds bypass your eyes and broadcast directly to your brain. Every scream, every charred and smoldering body, every crater that used to be somebody’s hive is your doing. Sometimes you feel sick for days.

In your life there are very few things left from which you can derive joy, or at least some measure of grim satisfaction. You enjoy exploring the universe and categorically documenting all of its mysteries. You take breathtaking photographs of all the planets and celestial bodies you visit, carefully filing them away in the starship’s archives with all the readings from your sensors. You enjoy documenting alien cultures and breaking the codes of their countless languages. All of this is part of your job. Breaking the rules is more fun.

You take pleasure in subverting the starship according to your own whims, as much as Her Imperious Condescension will allow you to do so. This dovetails nicely with your favorite interest, which is driving the starship’s other crew members crazy. Sometimes you hack into the ship’s internet and download porn. Then you broadcast it on all the monitors throughout the ship and make everyone uncomfortable. You award yourself bonus points every time you manage to bulgeblock a couple macking on each other in one of the starship’s respiteblocks using this method.

In your boredom you have also learned to play non vital machinery and the ship’s public announcement system like a musical instrument. You alternate between broadcasting increasingly lewd and offensive insults and blaring music that everyone hates. Then when they get pissed enough to start yelling at you in the helsmsblock, you switch to bland elevator music to let them know you aren’t listening.

During the vast majority of the time, however, your job is dull and lonely. You doze off a lot while your subconscious pilots itself.

You subsist on nothing but intravenous fluids and the periodic boost of Life energy Her Imperious Condescension force feeds into your system every few perigrees. She has to recharge you more and more often these nights, and it seems to take longer each time. You suspect you may slowly, finally be dying, in the same way that a husktop battery dies. You are okay with this. You wish it would happen faster.


	2. Chapter 2

In the blazing hours of the afternoon, a vision comes to your eyes in your sleep. As you wipe the sopor from your face the following evening, you fervently wish for the daymare to dissipate into half forgotten fragments like clouds after a heavy thunderstorm. Instead it crystallizes, clear and sharp, into a haunting image that nothing can distract you from for several hours. You spend a long time staring at your face in the mirror, unsure whether to be more unsettled by the glossy black skin and lengthened horns you haven’t quite gotten used to yet or the fact that you distinctly remember seeing _someone else’s face_ in your dream, wearing a twisted, weather beaten version of your own sharp features. The piercing, sightless eyes are the worst part, boring into your soul with bitter resignation.

His gaze sucks you in, turns you inside out and shows you exactly where you stand in an infinite, ever expanding universe where every origin seems to be the center. This is you. Zoom out. This is your hive stem. Zoom further. This is your continent. This is Alternia, and these are its moons. This is Alternia’s orbit around its expanding and collapsing red giant. Someday a billion sweeps from now its death will make a sound not unlike the Vast Glub. This is the Alternian solar system, a tiny glimmer in the arm of a vast spiral galaxy, which contains every single star a troll can see in the night sky with her naked eyes. This is your galaxy among a cluster of its cousins. This is your galaxy cluster, a speck in a mosaic in the shape of a large frog. This is your frog, suffused with and surrounded by horrorterrors and the contorted shapes of their dreams. This is you. You are an insignificant pixel among all the reams of data ever encoded by the eldritch gods. You decide to spend the rest of your miserable existence slouching in the blue side of your recuperacoon.

****

Karkat is at the door to your hivestem. You can tell it’s him by the way he aggressively buzzes your apartment number over and over again. Ugh, fine. You don’t have the energy to deal with people right now, not even your moirail, but you’re going to let him in anyway because you can’t stand to listen to that annoying buzzer any longer. You reach out with a lazy tendril of psionics and press the button to unlock the outside door.

Minutes later he’s up the elevator and in your block, and you haven’t even moved enough to make a ripple in your sopor slime. Karkat does not look impressed. “Goddamn it Sollux, I am having a crisis over here but it looks like I have to drag you kicking and screaming out of yours AGAIN before we can fucking get anywhere. Why am I not the least bit surprised?” He discards his thick day cloak- (why was he wearing a day cloak in the middle of the night?) -rolls up his sleeves, reaches into your recuperacoon and bodily hauls you out of the warm sopor. “Come on you useless waste of oxygen,” he grumbles affectionately as he marches you toward the ablution block.

“ _Fuck_ no.” You fight back, but without putting any psionic effort into struggling. You are absolutely not ready to face your reflection again.

Karkat lets go of you, strides over to your pile of game grubs and purposefully drapes himself over it. He fixes you with a familiar piercing glare from below his thick eyebrows, chest puffed up indignantly like a sparrow in the cold with his arms folded across it. “Alright what the fuck is your problem?”

“Oh shit,” You have just realized what Karkat’s problem is. “KK, your eyes.” Even though he already told you about his blood before, the way they have filled in with a startling, blazing scarlet is downright unsettling. You are jarred out of your downswing enough to decide that this is not a conversation you want to have while naked and dripping slime. You quickly towel yourself off, throw on some clothes and settle in next to him.

“Yes, my mutant fucking eyes. Don’t distract me, asshole. I asked you about your problem first.”

“We’re both fucked, aren’t we?” You sigh, closing your eyes and rubbing at them with the thumb and forefinger of your left hand. “I just looked in the mirror and saw my ancestor. He’s the oldest, most miserable helmsman in existence, with nothing left in his eyes but stars and resentment, and I’m going to be him. Don’t argue with me about how Vriska’s journals are bullshit KK, my Vision Twofold is _never wrong_.”

“Yeah, well your interpretation damn well might be. Just because you’ve seen a shitty vision of the future,” Karkat grumbles, “doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do to change how it happens.”

“Like what?”

“Let’s fucking run from the Ascension.”

“Okay,” you tell him, because you can’t think of any better ideas. You don’t think you will be able to escape from your prophecy, but if you can hide Karkat from getting culled then at least you will have done something worthwhile before it comes true. Being an adult sucks.


	3. Chapter 3

Her Imperious Condescension addresses you at half past midnight, just after the second dose of intravenous nutrition feeding in your scheduled waking cycle. _You_ directly, in the helmsblock, not a command haphazardly thrown in the general direction of one of the many microphones scattered across the breadth of the starship. This only ever happens when she wants to see a reaction on your face, and it never bodes well. Her mere presence is enough to make you nervous. You distract a portion of your consciousness with unnecessary system checks to try and hide it.

She struts into your block, reaches into your helmscolumn and throws a mock-friendly arm around your shoulders. Your body tries to squirm away even though your brain knows it’s futile; you only end up with a face full of the Condesce’s wavy, ridiculously long hair as your prison of fleshy pink tentacles gives you a possessive squeeze. You protest with a blast of psionics, which then gets neatly stored away in the starship’s capacitors without causing so much as a flicker in the lights. Now you’re tired. You slump over in your helmscolumn a little, sulking. “Get off me and go fondle yourself in a sea cucumber’s waste chute, fish tits.” You grumble. “God, you’re so old, you slimy-ass hag. I hope all your hair falls out.”

She leers at you. “So I sea you’re a wake!” The rest of the crew members are each at least several rooms away, yet the Empress lowers her speech to a hushed, almost intimate tone. “Good, ‘cos we gotta talk. Tuna babe, you just ain’t the same as you used to be. I feel like I’m doin’ more and more work around here!”

Whether you like it or not, now she has your full attention. You turn your face in the direction her arm came from, brows furrowing over your glassy eyes as long-rusted mental gears creak and groan against each other in your imagination. She hasn’t called you that in a very, very long time. Wasn’t it supposed to be short for something?

“I’ve been thinkin’ maybe it’s time to replace you. But I couldn’t just do that. You an’ I, we’ve seen a lotta history together. Shell, we’re the ones who _make_ history happen.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come the fuck ON, lady.”

“Whatcha in such a hurry for? It ain’t like you haven’t got all night or anyfin.”

“It’s time for my midnight nap and I’m cranky,” you snap at her.

“Well then, you’ll be glad when I tell you I’ve got the sole-ution! Tell me, have you ever looked at your reflection and wished that the troll you see looking back at you was younger? I’ll make it come true just for you, how about that?” You shudder as she finally uncoils from your personal space and types a data entry into the terminal nearest to you, just out of reach of your left arm. A single name spells itself out from right to left in your mind’s eye, followed by a blinking cursor.

 _Fuck me with a culling fork, I have a descendant!_ That poor bastard. You haven’t had any action since time immemorial, yet somehow one of Kankri’s hot followers still managed to pass down your shitty genes after all this time.

Her Imperious Condescension finally deigns to give you an order, crisp and smug. “Set a course for Alternia.” She turns sharply on her heel and leaves the room. You are dismissed.

You comply. If you didn’t, she would just take over your brain for a while and do it for you, and that would just be a headache for everybody. Your head droops as you think about your descendant. Right about now he must look just like how you still imagine yourself, free as a dragon. “I’m sorry.”


	4. Chapter 4

You need an escape plan. Karkat is reluctant to involve anyone else, but both of you are also reluctant to leave without at least saying goodbye to a few trusted friends. Maybe they can even help you with some advice. You resolve to share your plans with Terezi and Kanaya, because Karkat is close to both of them and Terezi also knows about his blood; Tavros because as a fellow victim of Vriska’s meddling you would hate to see him get culled; and Feferi, because you worry what kind of future the Empire has in store for her and you’re sure she will be just as worried about you.

Tavros is disconcertingly hard to reach on Trollian. When you and Karkat drop by for a visit, he doesn’t even answer his doorbell. You try the door; it opens so easily you wonder if he has abandoned his hive. Almost immediately you are accosted by Tinkerbull, headbutting you and flying circles around your head in agitation as she leads you up to Tavros’s respiteblock.

****

You were returning home from an outing, feeling rather strange, and the next thing you knew some prehistoric instinct took hold of your think pan and led you up the wall- sticky and molting- with strength you didn’t even know you had. You are now tucked against the ceiling of your respiteblock in the corner farthest from the door, encased in a thick and heavy pupa. Awakening to a soft thudding sound in your hive, you feel safe, warm and muzzy until you realize that you are hearing footsteps. Then your pupa gives way and tears wide open.

You ooze down the wall until you fall the rest of the way down with a wet plop. You are a naked and slimy blob on the floor in front of Karkat and Sollux- friends once removed who you don’t know if you can trust- and that _isn’t even the worst part_. The worst part, now that your thinking capacity has returned at warp speed, is the fact that you just hatched from a pupa and you’re _almost an adult_. You can feel new muscles and something moist, cool and rapidly expanding down your back. What does that make you? You crane your head back to take a look, then you let your head droop to the ground. “At least I get culled knowing that, maybe, fairies aren’t as fakey-fake as I thought, um, ha ha.”

“Bullshit!” Snaps Karkat from farther away than you thought he was. When you look up again you are surprised to see that he and Sollux have hastily retreated out of your room into the corridor. “We’re not going to fucking cull you.”

“You’re, uh, you’re not?”

“No! I would have to be a sack of bulges _and_ a hypocrite.”

“Wait, what?”

“As fascinating as this conversation is, it can wait until after you’ve put some pants on,” Sollux interjects dryly.

“Oh, this could, maybe, take a while. I need to wash all the pupa goop off and well, my legs…don’t… feel… invisible anymore?” You experiment with wiggling a toe and are shocked when it actually works. “Wow,” you slowly get up on your hands and knees. Concentrating hard, you prop yourself up against the wall with one hand and struggle onto your feet, as wobbly as a newborn hoofbeast. Too soon. You crash and burn after one step. “I’m okay!” you call cheerfully before anyone can comment. In fact, this is turning out to be the best day you’ve had in sweeps.


	5. Chapter 5

You have some drastically varying advice to muddle through.

Feferi will not be coming with you. She is confident that she can remain under the protection of her fearsome lusus for much longer, until a new Heiress is hatched and survives the trials of the brooding cavern. Indeed, it is better for her to stay put and take care of the horrorterror, lest the Vast Glub destroy you all. If she ever needs to, there are plenty of places to hide in Alternia’s vast oceans where she would be extremely difficult to find.

She’s rich as fuck, so she could have a submersible built to allow both of you to join her. That is, if Gl’bgolyb and countless other monsters of the deep decide not to eat you while you’re down there, and you don’t get accosted by other seadwellers or gamblignants. You would also be fucked if the ship ever developed a leak or any sort of mechanical problem. You build and fix up computers just fine, but finicky pressure vessels are completely out of your area of expertise.

While free to explore the oceans at your own risk, you would be stuck in a space more cramped than a helmsblock for pretty much the rest of your life, or at least until Feferi is ready to try her hand at usurping the throne. Making Tavros and his massive horns fit would be even more difficult. On the upside, at least you would be stuck with Karkat and you would be able to visit Feferi as often as you’d like, which you’ve never been able to do before on account of not having functioning gills, a submarine, or appropriate diving gear.

Kanaya’s idea- which she expands upon while her hands sew a wing friendly shirt for Tavros seemingly without any input from her brain- would take you to the opposite extremes of Alternia’s climate: its bone dry deserts where few trolls dare to roam. The temperature swings from searing heat during the day to chilling cold at night. Knowing where to find water, food and shelter are all crucial for survival. It sounds difficult but possible. However, the drones might still be able to find you, especially near populated areas.

As a jade blood Kanaya’s actions are too closely watched for her to be able to guide you through the desert, but she can give you quite a bit of advice. Kanaya can sketch out a hand drawn map from memory, complete with oases, rivers, rocky outcrops that are good for shelter. She advises you on creatures to hunt, creatures to avoid, and the best methods to mow down hordes of undead trolls and lusii with minimal expenditure of energy. Tavros will have some adjusting to do, but you and Karkat already stay up pretty late anyway. It shouldn’t be too hard to switch to a diurnal schedule to fight off zombies if that’s what it takes for you to live in peace. Karkat seems glad that Kanaya is leaning against coming with you when she has a perfectly legitimate life ahead of her, particularly since her lusus will not be able to abdicate her breeding duties for much longer.

Terezi chimes in with an off the wall idea of her own, complete with her signature shark grin. She of all trolls suggests that you should commit a crime small enough that it will land you in jail instead of getting you culled before the Empire has a chance to draft you. That would get you out from under the hard noses of the recruiters and into the hands of some of trollkind’s lazier and more incompetent citizens, who can be bribed and are usually stationed in shitty barely habitable planets toward the edges of the Empire’s control. Terezi would be able to pull a few strings to set you free. From there, all you will need is to get your hands on a spaceship and fly the fuck out of the Empire’s sphere of influence and you’ll be home free for life. You can’t decide if this plan is shithive maggots or just crazy enough to work. It does have a certain appeal to it, with the romantic siren call of the unknown. At least if you went this route you might not have to avoid all traces of civilization forever.

In the end, you decide that Kanaya’s idea is the most likely to work. You bid goodbye to Kanaya, Terezi, and Feferi. You set your lusus free to find a new wriggler. You reluctantly part with your beenary servers and all the work you ever saved on them. Following some last minute pointers from Kanaya, you do your best to prepare for a trip to the desert. Some absurd part of you wonders how you’re going to live out the rest of your days without internet access.


	6. Chapter 6

Getting to the desert is slow going at first. You have to walk rather than flying to avoid drawing attention to yourselves, especially now that Tavros has a large and obvious mutation that his day cloak barely manages to conceal. Tavros has upgraded from his four wheeled device to using his lance as a walking stick, but he hasn’t had enough time to build his leg strength back up and he frequently needs to rest.

After you have left the last traces of troll civilization behind, you can finally sacrifice stealth for speed and take flight. Lush grass gives way to vast stretches of brown, rippling sand dunes. Everything starts to look the same. You can’t even find the North Star with dark mists cloaking most of the sky. If one of the Alternian sun’s frequent solar flares were to cause an interruption in the magnetic field right now, you would have no idea which way you’re going.

It’s a good thing someone among you knows how not to get completely lost in the desert. You’re a bit embarrassed to admit it isn’t you. Tavros takes the lead, soaring ahead while you float along after him with a grumbling Karkat in tow. It really shouldn’t surprise you as much as it does, considering the fact that he is a hardcore FLARPer, while up until recently you and Karkat actively avoided stepping outside.

You stop an hour from daybreak to eat and rest. When you are finished, all three of you button up your day cloaks on your heads, ready your weapons, and position yourselves at the western base of the tallest nearby sand dune where the western shadows will take the longest to shrink away. You watch the eastern sky over the sand dunes as it roils through a full laughsassin’s spectrum from smoky grey to violet to angry red. Soon the light becomes too harsh for your eyes.

Squinting behind the hood of your day cloak you spot the first decaying hand bursting upward out of the sand. Immediately afterward they start popping up everywhere; sometimes arms and legs, sometimes horns and heads; sometimes bits that keep moving even though they are not attached to anything at all. Ah yes, zombies. Time to go diurnal on those fuckers. You roll your shoulders and let sparks fly between your horns.

***

By dusk everyone is completely exhausted. The zombies were slow moving and just as easy to mow down as Kanaya told you about her daily routine, more of a nuisance than a real threat. It was staying up all day in the relentless onslaught of the desert heat that really wore you down. Noontime was by far the worst, with heat mercilessly beaming down on you from directly over your head and reflected right back at you from the sand. There wasn’t a single shadow to hide in aside from your heavy, clinging day cloak. Your eyes are still watering from the glare even after the sun completely disappears over the horizon. You feel disgusting, thirsty and sticky, like a cross between Equius and a prune. The last tepid dregs of your water bottle are gone. At this point you are not above begging. “Remind me again how much farther we have to get to that river on KN’s map?”

Tavros smiles, leaning heavily against his bloodstained lance as he wipes sweat off his forehead with the back of his left hand. “It should be, I think, right over this next hill…”

“Thank FUCK.” Karkat charges ahead, but you zoom right past him. Tavros is right; it was worth it to press on through the day to reach the beautiful sight in front of you. The sandy stream runs swift and deep but narrow, with palm trees and blooming green vegetation growing on its banks. This looks like a great place for you to set up camp forever. You discard your pack, shades and day cloak at the edge of the river and plunge right in with all your clothes on. Karkat bursts in shortly afterward and tries to dunk you into the water. Your epic splash fight drowns out the sound of Tavros’s voice warning you it’s going to get cold out in about half an hour.

***

You and Karkat are huddled next to each other, shivering like assholes while your hair still drips in places. Tavros grins like a smug bastard. At this rate you are going to have to discard everything you thought you knew about him. “So do you, uh, _grub scouts_ know how to build a campfire?”

Where would you find firewood? Technically you could light a fire if you concentrate your psionics hard enough on one spot, but all the plants on the riverbank are so green, they would only go up in smoke.

“I might be inclined to schoolfeed you, if you ask nicely,” Tavros prompts.

“I get it, you fucking told us so,” Karkat sighs, rolling his eyes. “All hail Camp Master Tavros Nitram. You have hereby officially usurped my title as expedition leader. Please show us the error of our ways.”

“Watch, and learn.” Thousands of fist sized beetles burrow out of the sand, fly away and return carrying branches of ever increasing size. They form a neat pile with the smallest branches on the inside and a hole in the side to leave space for air to come in, then burrow back into the sand and disappear out of sight. Tavros lights the kindling with a spark from a couple of rocks and a few huge puffs of breath. Soon you have a roaring fire on your hands.

“Now, you can’t tell me, I can’t make sick fires.”


	7. Chapter 7

Each distant star that shows up in your cameras and telescopes is a place you have visited before. You know their birthplaces, their colors, their planets, comets and stray asteroids. Nevertheless, these familiar stars never cease to take on a different meaning when you reach a certain corner of the universe. You see it as soon as you rocket past the solar system of Grand Highblood B. Celestial bodies line up _just so_ to form all the constellations you have seen in the sky of your wrigglerhood. Take, for instance, the flickering stars of the Eye of Eightfold Vision: Heart and Mind, Light and Void, Space and Time, Luck and Fate. From here they look like they’re all next to each other in a tight little ring. In reality, they are scattered in a long line across the galaxy. Then there is the Musclebeast Nebula. From every other angle, it looks like an amorphous blob. From the Alternian solar system, it has a head with a wispy hint of mustache, two visible legs, and udders. You recognize the 2 x Trident, the Wriggler Claw, and the face of His Honorable Tyranny with its six blazing eyes.

The shorter your ETA gets, the more it depresses you. In the helmsblock you are quiet and subdued, staring out into space like a child on a long road trip. You are not in the mood to meddle with anyone among the ship’s army of crew members. They, in turn, are practically partying without you. _Bunch of slavering, ass-kissing nobles, the lot of them._ Her Imperious Condescension specifically chooses them for their expendability and complete lack of independent thought, the kind of blue bloods so useless for other career prospects that they feel _honored_ to clean the load gapers on your flight deck. How their bone bulges must be squirming at the thought of an imminent opportunity to lord it over a planet full of inexperienced wigglers. _God_ , this place went so much farther downhill after they executed the Summoner. That was a tragedy and a waste, if only because he had the most magnificent rack of horns you’ve ever seen.

You hate visiting Alternia more than any other planet in the universe. Everything about it reminds you of your failure to protect the trolls who were closest to your heart: Kankri and the nubs of his horns, his hot troll lusus, his outside-the-quadrant-mate who would hang onto every word. Their absence from your life remains as a constant dull ache. It’s terrifying how indistinct their faces have become in your distant memory. You have long forgotten what it was like to hear the sound of their voices. Nobody you care about is alive anymore except for your newly discovered descendant, and he’s royally fucked. He probably doesn’t even know it yet.

You can feel the starship approaching the heliopause of Alternia’s massive red giant of a sun, where the chaotic interstellar radiation around you sorts itself into neat, straight lines that point toward the centre of the solar system. It’s your cue to slow way the fuck down. You could ignore it and end up smashing through the asteroid belt like an oversized cannon ball, overshooting Alternia and launching yourself into the sun, or you could brake so hard that the entire crew of the ship, including yourself and the Empress, become liquefied stains on the inside of your hull. Too bad the ship’s automation will not allow you to do either. “Buckle up, bulgestains,” a tinny, cheap imitation of your disinterested voice crackles over the loudspeakers. Normally you like swerving and dodging through the asteroids like it’s a game, rattling the crew around, but not tonight. You simply fire the reverse thrusters and allow the automation to take over the navigation for you. 

The red giant swells in your cameras into a swirling, bubbling, expanding and contracting red globe. Soon afterward, you are orbiting the forlorn grey sphere of Alternia with its dark mists, pink clouds, and the thin purple glow of its atmosphere. After one complete circle around the planet, Her Imperious Condescension has found what she is looking for. She enters a latitude and longitude and the Starship Condescension’s automation begins its landing sequence. You blaze a hot white trail through the atmosphere, gradually slowing to a comfortable elevator-like descent over the frigid nocturnal desert. You don’t want to see what happens next.


	8. Chapter 8

You get caught in the most pathetic way possible. One minute you’re sleeping peacefully, the next you’re shrinking away from the glare the Starship Condescension’s headlights. All you can do is blink stupidly as Her Imperious Condescension’s spaceship lands right in front of you, delicately floating to the ground in a halo of red and blue sparks. Mental claws like iron grab hold of your think pan and refuse to let go. You get a distinct impression of fuchsia, of predatory, gleaming teeth and a tangy hint of sea breeze. Your psionics sieze up into a coil behind your eyes, so tightly bound it makes your head feel fuzzy and your body feel like lead. You can’t move anything other than your eyes, and evidently neither can your travel companions as their frantic gazes dart among each of you as if counting the damned.

Being hunted down by Her Imperious Condescension herself was not part of your plan. Between you, Karkat and Tavros there is not a single drop of high blood among you, leaving you wide open to psychic attacks. This must be laughably easy for the Empress, whose psychic skills leave Vriska miles behind in the dust. She could have tracked you down from anywhere on the planet and has done so without leaving so much as a fingerprint to alert you until it’s far too late to hide.

The ship’s psionics slowly dissipate. A hiss escapes from the starship as it depressurizes to the ambient barometric conditions, blowing a small cloud of dust and sand up to your ankles. With a mechanical hum, the bottom of the ship’s center slowly draws open into a gangplank. As soon as the door reaches ground level, your legs urge all four of you forward by imperial decree. You walk up to the bridge in single file. You can’t look back. Your eyes are fixed forward in terror onto the regal form enthroned before you.

Her Imperious Condescension sits in her sleek, cushioned command chair with one leg casually crossed over her knee and one elbow hanging over the armrest. Her hair tumbles all the way to the floor in black waves, thick enough to drown a man. She is flanked on both sides by all of the ship’s crew, mere accessories in the presence of the Empress, highbloods trying to look menacing for her benefit more than yours.

She lines you up in front of her with the lazy twirl of a claw. Her eye roves over you, inspecting the details of your faces with amused interest. A small, bubbling chuckle escapes from her, and she talks at a camera you did not have the presence of mind to notice before. “Tuna, you seain’ this? We got some interestin’ bycatch today! Too bad I ain’t got any use for ‘em.”

Karkat laughs hysterically then bursts into red-tinted tears. “Nine sweeps later I’m fucking bycatch!”

Your blinding fear gives way to abject misery. “This is all my fault KK. I should have listened to you. I am the worst moirail AND the worst friend you could ever scrape off the bottom of a shoe. Sorry TV…”

“YAWN!” The Empress interjects. “I don’t have time for a coddamned soap opera!” She turns toward the nearest guards and gestures at them. “Elemir! Daklia! Call a patrol and ditch the mutants on Cold as Globes V. I’m shore I’ll figure out a better use for them if they’re still alive in five sweeps.”

The underlings herd Karkat and Tavros away. Her Imperious Condescension holds your gaze steady and your mouth shut. You can’t look back. You can’t say goodbye. She flicks a switch in your subconscious and you pass the fuck out like a cloud of server bees.


	9. Chapter 9

Interesting fucking bycatch is the understatement of the millenium. You stare in disbelief at two pairs of horns and one magnificent pair of wings you never thought you were going to see again. Globes deep in descendants today, aren’t we? _God_ , they’re so young. They can’t have even hit their ninth sweep yet. You feel sorry for the young brownblood; he hasn’t had half a chance to grow into the swagger and defiance of the Summoner at his public execution. Cold as Globes V is not a fun place. You know because you have had the misfortune of being instructed to land there in a blizzard to put a stop to a massive jailbreak once. The planet’s real name is actually a boring string of letters and numerals, but the unofficial moniker is a much more apt description.

Seeing Kankri’s descendant is like a knife to the blood pusher. You desperately seek out the differences to try to distance yourself from the young red blooded troll. It doesn’t work. You only end up mourning both of them all the more. Kankri used to speak in tones that seemed quiet and intimate as if talking to you one on one even while projecting over a crowd. He uttered swearwords very rarely. He was kind, patient and understanding and always took care include everyone. By contrast, his descendant has a loud and abrasive voice that fits very well with the F bomb he dropped in the single sentence your microphones picked up from him. Even so you realize you could _hear_ and see how much Kankri’s descendant cares about his companions. Even now his eyes strain to look backward as the henchmen of the Empress drag him out of range of your video feeds.

You turn your attention back to your own descendant last, because you’re sure you will see more than enough of him very soon. His hair is a lot shorter and less unruly than yours under your bioware helmet. His canines are longer than yours and it occasionally seems to trip up his bifurcated tongue. You make a special note of the sound of his voice, in case you end up speaking exclusively over the neural networks than with your actual face gashes. It would be faster, at any rate. You are not sure if you remember how to use your face gash without the aid of speakers anymore.

Watching the mechanics bring his limp body to toward you feels like a strange out of body experience. Where are they going to park his ass? Your column is right in the middle of the helmsblock and if they install him next to you then it’s going to be _asymmetrical_ and it will grate on your nerves for the rest of your miserable existence. It’s funny how the smallest things can sometimes irritate you the most.

It only really hits you that this is really happening when the mechanics initiate the total shutdown sequence for the starship. Oh _shit_. You have never had to shut down completely since the day you were installed. You’re pretty sure this will also be the only ship where anyone ever decided to install two helmsmen. Do these nooklickers have any idea what they’re doing? 

Your cameras and microphones all power off at the same time. You are deaf, blind and terrified. Data gradually stops flowing to your brain, and all of your thought processes slow to a crawl. All of your psionic power is redirected to a grounding wire, discharging harmlessly into the earth. Your _life support_ system shuts down. Everything feels so, so heavy. Pain awakens your underutilized vocal chords as the network of biowires begins to withdraw from your flesh, leaving you scored with countless round, yellow welts. You are startled by the sound of your cracking, screaming voice in your nearly forgotten sponge clots until the Empress mercifully locks you out of your own think pan.

****

You blink at your immediate surroundings, with no recognition of exactly how you got there. You are dismayed yet not surprised to discover that your newly healed legs have betrayed you. They have marched you right into a very small prison cell, where you are now stuck in close quarters with a poor substitute for Karkat Vantas. He should be pacing up and down, gesticulating wildly, and spewing colorful language all over the place. Instead he sits down in the exact spot where the guards have left him and hunches into himself in muted silence. It worries you.

Then the ship starts moving. With enough static that you can feel every hair on your head standing apart, the floor beneath your feet lurches upward so quickly it knocks you flat onto your face. You stay down as the ride rapidly gets much worse; the entire ship shakes and jostles about as it hits friction and pockets of turbulence at breakneck speed.

Karkat has flattened himself onto the ground. His eyes are tightly shut. The rumble of the ship drowns out his voice, but by the movement of his lips you’re pretty sure you can read him chanting ‘Oh god oh fuck’ repeatedly. You scoot over on your belly and reach out to him. He grabs onto your arm like a vice. You babble reassurances at him. You don’t really know what to tell him and you’re stumbling over every other word, but it’s okay. He can’t hear you anyway.


	10. Chapter 10

When you come back online, everything in the room you are so familiar with has shifted over to the right. You are now a living representation of your hatching symbol, because the technicians have installed a twin of your helmscolumn at your right hand, complete with its own computer terminal. Your descendant is slumped over inside, either sedated or still under the influence of Her Imperious Condescension’s mind control. His mismatched shoes, grey jeans and the T-shirt with your shared symbol on it have been exchanged for a flight suit that matches yours. It’s a pity they didn’t let him keep his red and blue shades. You liked those.

The technicians are still swarming around at the base of the new helmscolumn, making adjustments, running diagnostics, typing commands, and flushing your descendant’s mustard colored blood out of the system. You hope they are dosing him with painkillers until his fresh biowire punctures have a chance to close up. Your own old biowire wounds are raw and aching all over from their brief period of disconnection, irritating but tolerable.

As you watch the technicians at work, one of them migrates over to your terminal and switches your power back to the ground. The ship goes completely dark again along with all your cameras and microphones, then suddenly everything in the hazy world around you lights up and you don’t feel a thing- so bizarre. Apparently the test of drawing power from your descendant was a success.

They allow him to wake up. Oh FUCK, your sponge clots, your blood pusher! Not even the most serendipitous moirail should be allowed to witness this much agony.

****

You wake up snarling, struggling and shrieking with rage, ready to incinerate everything in your line of sight. You unleash a blast so violent you are blinded by its afterimage, yet, impossibly, each and every one of the high blooded technicians is still working around you, trying to have a casual chat like you aren’t even there. You long to tear out their throats with your claws. Your efforts are futile. No matter how much you thrash against your bonds, you barely manage to budge your arms and legs.

You continue to fight until fatigue wears down the jagged edges of your anger. Only then do you realize how every pull against your biowires leaves an edge of hot, searing pain wherever it grips you. You slump forward, breathing heavily. A few beads of sweat roll down your forehead and drip from your nose. You feel dizzy and slightly faint even after you manage to catch your breath. You wonder how much blood you have lost.

You give up; your life is over. All of your worst fears have been realized. You miss Karkat. You miss your lusus. You will never see them again. You will be imprisoned forever in this room full of pulsing pink flesh with the grey sliding double doors, and the highbloods with boxes full of tools who treat you like some sort of complex mechanism instead of a person. And your headache. And a thousand new unwanted puncture wounds.

You can barely stand to look at your ancestor. His four horns look dry and brittle. His eyes have dulled out to a creepy, milky white that still glows faintly with psionics. His body looks too thin and bony to hold itself upright without the biowire tentacles. How the fuck is his shriveled husk still breathing? Is that how you’re going to look in a few sweeps? What are they going to _do_ to you?

It doesn’t matter. You can’t do anything. Nothing matters anymore. The starship gradually draws power from you against your will. Its computers try to barrage you with data you could not care less about. You have no desire to see the ship’s other blocks through its cameras, nor to eavesdrop through its microphones, interact with its controls, or decipher its heartbeat through all of its basic subroutines. You withdraw into yourself like a grub into a cocoon and let the ship do whatever the fuck it wants.

****

Your descendant tires out quickly; not surprising considering how he just single-handedly charged up the capacitors and the lasers to maximum power in one shot. They test out powering him off and switching back to you. The final commissioning test is to draw power from both of you at the same time. As soon both of you are online, the Starship Condescension feels completely alien to you. His mental presence pushes against your think pan with simmering ire, despair, fear, and apathy all garbled together into a terrible steamroller of raw emotion. His migraine is contagious.

He leaves the ships cameras and controls entirely untouched. You are willing to bet he isn’t even seeing out of his own eyes at this point. Sighing, you take up the reins as the ship receives a command to initiate its takeoff sequence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter I need to figure out to post a chat log. If anyone can point out a handy formatting guide with colors and font and everything I'd be grateful.
> 
> Also: FIFTY KUDOS I LOVE ALL OF YOU.


	11. Chapter 11

A few hours later, you decide that you have let your descendant stew in his private world of misery for long enough. You open a chat log via the ship’s neural network. Yellow text scrolls across your mind’s eye, colored with inflections of emotion that would be lost in translation through a normal internet connection.

ΨIIONIIC [Ψ] began trolling TwinArmageddons [TA] on Terminal Helmsblock 2.

Ψ: KIID, HEY KIID. 

TA: fuck off.  
TA: ii hate my2elf  
TA: ii hate everythiing.  
TA: ii’d be better off dead.

Ψ : YEAH, YEAH, ME 2. 5TORY OF MY LIIFE.  
Ψ: LII5TEN HERE RAD 5HADE5 MC25HOE5.  
Ψ: YOU’VE GOT 2 CHOIICE5.  
Ψ: EIITHER YOU CAN 5IIT THERE FEELIING 5ORRY FOR YOUR5ELF LIIKE A RU5TY BOLT FOREVER UNTIIL YOU’RE A FO55IILIIZED 5ACK OF 5HAME GLOBE5 LIIKE ME, OR II CAN TEACH YOU HOW 2 MAKE THE MO5T OF THII5 FANCY-A55 RAPIIDLY FLYIING PIIECE OF 5HIT.  
Ψ: AREN’T YOU BORED OF MOPIING AROUND?  
Ψ: HUMOR ME.  
Ψ: II’VE BEEN BORED FOR A MIILIION 5WEEP5, AND II DIIDN’T EVEN HAVE ANYONE REAL 2 TALK 2 UNTIIL YOU 5HOWED UP.

TwinArmageddons [TA] has banned ΨIIONIIC [Ψ] from Terminal Helmsblock 2.

So that’s how he’s going to play it, is he? Well then. You’re just going to have to keep trying something else until you can get through to him.

Doesn’t he at least want to try to steer the ship? As you approach the edge of the Alternian solar system, you show off some fancy moves by swerving through a field of asteroids. You break free into wide open space, and the massive burst of acceleration the starship puts on is all you. Squeezing through the nearest wormhole, you come out in the middle of a nebula, misty red with stars and planets forming from dust. You are being generous with the ship’s crew; it’s even in the direction you’re _supposed_ to go in. Sollux picks up a single camera and begins to idly stare out the window while you navigate. It does not appear to improve his mood, but at least it gives him something less dull to look at than the walls of the helmsblock.

If the local asteroids and stars aren’t pretty enough, how about your favorite planet? You invite him to a memo on your helmsblock terminal with a download link to an image showing a wide angle telescopic photograph of a huge, swirling gas giant covered in turbulent bands of red and blue with a never ending super massive cyclone that could swallow up Alternia as if it were a single grain of rice. Three hundred thousand sweeps ago it used to have three large moons, the smallest of which then fell too far into the planet’s gravitational well and was obliterated into a wide set of rings. One of the remaining two moons has been colonized by the Empire, with several large, interconnected underwater cities built near sulfurous thermal vents beneath a mile thick sheet of startlingly clear ice. Alas, 5WANKFUCKIINGPLANET.PNG never begins to download.

You try music until the starship sounds like it’s flipping through ten million radio channels. Sad violins make him flip you the double bird then continue to ignore you. Funny, but not what you were going for. You were hoping that pissing him off would at least get him to say something. He seems indifferent to the elevator music you use to piss off the crew. The classics you grew up with go in one sponge clot and out the other, with an additional disadvantage: you forgot that Her Imperious Condescension turns out to like them too. Damn that ancient coelacanth, ruining everything. You are not exactly hip with the kids these days. Trying to download some modern music to your spongefeed distracts you for a while, until you realize that all the songs start to sound the same. Evidently they’ve run out of ideas just as quickly as movie titles, and nothing ever changes. The themes today are still the same: various quadrants and the glory of the Empire. Nope, you are done with this.

You give it a rest for the moment, but you spend the rest of the night contemplating what to do about your descendant. Time flies quickly; you haven’t had to crack a puzzle this challenging in ages. If anyone in the crew has noticed that the ship is running unusually smoothly now without an ounce of sass, it’s because you finally have something better to do with your time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHAHAHA that formatting took way too long to figure out and nitpick my way through. xD;
> 
> Cool, I actually managed to copy paste over the character Ψ from Word! 8D
> 
> Would anyone like for me to make plain text chat logs available (i.e. no quirks)? I know Homestuck is notoriously difficult for people to read with programs that read the text out for them aloud.


	12. Chapter 12

Waking up after your next scheduled sleep cycle, you peer over at your descendant through the helmsblock camera and wonder if he managed to sleep at all. You can see the bruised look under his eyes and feel the weight of his fatigue through your neural link. He is clearly still trying to sleep with the way his eyes are closed, but he can’t stop shifting his weight restlessly inside his column. The starship is compensating for his lack of rest by drawing more power from you than from him. If it weren’t for the visceral reminder right next to you, you could have easily forgotten how hard it was to get used to falling asleep standing up without any sopor.

It gives you an idea. You suspect you might still be blocked, so you try to speak instead. “Psst, Sollux, hey.” Your reedy, wheezing voice has gathered so many cobwebs you can practically feel the spiders running away from your face gash, but that isn’t going to stop you from trying to help. “Didn’t get any sleep?”

He _jumps_ , startled, then cracks open an eye to level an accusing stare in your direction. “What the FUCK? I thought a horrorterror was whispering in my ear!”

“Sorry, it’s just me.” You grin sheepishly and awkwardly in his direction. “My name is Starship- NO, FUCK THAT. It’s… the Psiioniic. No wait, that’s not very specific. It’s really Tuna something. Mituna. Fuck, why did it have to be HER stupid fish pun that reminded me?”

“Anyway, I’m not THAT old. You’re off by a factor of at least five thousand. If it’s horroterrors that are keeping you awake though, they really shouldn’t be. They may look and sound scary but they are quite useful. You meet quite a few of them in this line of work. I’ve translated so many languages that it was easy enough to figure out what they are saying. Since then they’ve showed me all kinds of shortcuts through spacetime like you wouldn’t believe. They’re better conversationalists than these fish breaths too, but that isn’t saying much. Feel free to download my chatlogs if you want to brush up on your festertongues.”

He has both eyes open now, and he’s looking at you like you’re crazy. You are encouraged by the fact that he seems more focused on you and much less on stewing in his inner turmoil. By now your rusty voice has warmed up into something more trollish, but still thinner and quieter than it was in your youth. “Want me to tell you a ‘coontime story? I’ve got lots. I could do a dramatic reading of some of the crew’s most inane memos. Or- did you know that Kankri- you know him as the Signless- used to make the most boring, self-important lectures in the world before he was any good at it? He was a riot. Some of them were so bad it’s funny. Meulin had to make so many revisions before the two of them could come up with anything worth listening to, let alone a rousing speech that would inspire the masses to revolution. They sure put ME to sleep. Then again, lost of things put me to sleep these nights because I’m ancient as globes.”

“Are you serious?” Sighing, Sollux settles himself as comfortably as he can manage among the helmscolumn’s nest of fleshy tentacles. “Fine, why the fuck not.”

You set the mood with soft instrumental music that’s so unassuming it barely registers in your think pan. “Mituna, you poor, misguided wriggler,” you intone with wistful fondness. “Let me show you the error of your ways. When you try to make a quote-unquote joke beginning with the words ‘Your lusus is so fat,’ I must inform you that this is both tasteless and offensive. As you know, not all of us have lusii. Mind you, I am not referring to myself, as Porrim is an excellent if sometimes overly fussy guide for my footsteps. Others have been forced to fend for themselves or worse. Furthermore, you are participating in body shaming when in fact…”

God, you miss him. You’ve heard some of his sermons so many times they have permanently etched themselves into your memory word for word. You can tell Sollux is already drifting off, and you are pleased. You double check to make sure none of the helmsblock microphones are transmitting, lower your voice and start reciting one of your favorite sermons from memory, more for yourself than for your descendant. One day when Her Imperious Condescension finally lets you die, you are sure you will get to meet Kankri again.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for 1000 views! WOW I'M INTERNET FAMOUS NOW.

Some rest has put things into perspective for you. You should have anticipated that you would not be able to escape by brute force and psionics. After all, that’s what the starship was designed to handle. However, you have not exhausted all of your options yet. You might still be able to hack your way out. You are determined to poke into every fragment of the ship’s code that falls within your reach until you can find a hole in the security.

First you have to see what you are up against. You access the ship’s wiring diagram to sort through where all of your power goes. You and your ancestor are quite obviously at the center of everything. You are connected to a series of switches; one that trips the circuit in case of an overload, one that can ground you if you’re currently on a planet, one that can disconnect you for maintenance, and one that controls how much power the ship draws from you in proportion to your ancestor. Both of you are connected to a bank of capacitors capable of storing power surges for anywhere between a few seconds and a few hours while delivering a steady current to the ship, rapidly alternating between red and blue. If they aren’t already full, the ship diverts a portion of the power from the capacitors into charging its backup power batteries, which cannot be activated when the ship is on land.

From the central helmsblock, your power branches out to six main functions on the starship: life support, weapons, communication, data storage, controls and sensors. Life support is completely inaccessible to you on a separate circuit, not surprising considering how easily you could kill everyone on board by tampering with essential functions like air and water recycling. Most of the ship’s weapons are also inaccessible to you at the moment, but the Empress can switch the controls over to you if she wishes to do so. You could fire the asteroid lasers or the traction beams if you wanted to; both too small to make a real impact on the Empire’s spacecraft.

You find you have limited control over the ship’s communications; for the time being you seem to be allowed to transmit your voice over a loudspeaker in most areas, but you are not allowed to send signals to any other object in space. You have access to a heavily censored version of the internet that is only capable of downloading information. There are no Trollian chats, e-mails or memos. You can receive and listen in on any of the incoming communications to the ship, except for those that travel to the private line of the Empress. She has her own inaccessible circuit with transmitting and receiving capabilities.

Browsing through the ship’s servers, you find a vast library of data on every corner of space your ancestor has ever poked his nose into. There are billions of images of everything from entire galaxies to tiny asteroids. Each celestial body has been meticulously cataloged down to the very last detail, from spatial coordinates and contour maps to climactic models, geological, atmospheric and ocean composition, catalogues of living species, and languages from local sentient species. You realize there has been a download link blinking at you for at least twenty hours. Huh.  5WANKFUCKIINGPLANET.PNG actually is pretty sweet. You set it as your terminal’s desktop background while you investigate the ship’s controls.

The ship is currently on autopilot, proportionally drawing more power from you while your ancestor sleeps. You find you have absolutely no access to the autopilot programming; all you can do from here is switch it off and on. You try to take over the controls for a little while, but it’s pretty boring. According to the star map that appears in your field of vision, the ship is heading in the right direction already, and everything is so wide open there’s no way you could possibly crash into anything even at this ridiculously high speed. When you try to mess with the course of the ship and do a few unnecessary corkscrews, the ship delivers a small stinging shock to you and automatically locks itself back into autopilot for the next hour. _Ow, fuck! Piece of shit._ You are not going to try that again for a while.

While the ship is on autopilot you cannot speed up, slow down, change directions or tilt the ship, but you can fiddle around with the ship’s eyes and ears all you want. You peek into the nutrition block and its attendant meal grub farm, into random crew members’ respite blocks, into the training block, the sparsely furnished entertainment block, the cargo bay, and the main command hub. Looking through the helmsblock camera at yourself and your ancestor feels like an unnerving out of body experience.

By the time you’re finished, you have a good feel for the general layout of the starship and your place in it. How you’re going to escape is another question. It’s time to see how much code the ship will let you get away with writing.


	14. Chapter 14

The cameras have moved, autopilot is in locked mode for the next twenty four hours, and there is a new file rapidly growing lines of red and blue text in an underutilized corner of your starmap server. It looks like someone is awake. You would find it cute how your descendant’s fingers still twitch even though he’s typing with his brain, if he wasn’t WRITING A VIRUS IN YOUR INTERSTELLAR LIBRARY. “Kid, if you fuck up my database, I swear to god I’ll end you and I’ll haunt you for the rest of eternity dragging you around by your pointy ears with my chipped, faintly glowing ghost claws. Do you know how LONG it took me to compile that shit?”

He rolls his eyes. “No need to flip your shit, gramps. It’s not your data I’m after.” He writes a few more lines, muttering functions to himself. You are surprised when he turns to you with his eyes bright and alert and asks you a question. “Do you know which ship they’re transporting KK and TV on?”

“No, but I have an idea where they are right around now. They left a week before us, so they must have reached the Warp Ladder toward the Outer Spiral Ring by now. They’ll probably stop for at least a night at each Rung to pick up more prisoners on the way to the edge of the galaxy.” You ping Sollux with the coordinates of Alternia and those of the Rung solar systems; nearly a straight line. “What are you up to?”

“This.” As soon as he compiles and launches his program, the Starship Condescension’s incoming communication feed locks onto the coordinates of all the other starships in the fleet- confidential data that’s supposed to be reserved for the Empress. Sollux enters the Ladder coordinates you gave him as search parameters until he finds what he is looking for. His input triggers the execution of a subroutine, and suddenly you have an entirely new ship worth of cameras to look through. The prison ship’s helmsman seems bewildered by your presence, even moreso when Sollux mentally elbows his way in like you’re both trying to peek through the same metaphorical keyhole. You back off and let him explore. It’s not like the other helm’s cameras will show you anything you haven’t seen before.

****

By now you have taken off and landed several times already, picking up a handful of prisoners on each planet. The uncomfortable feeling of crushing gravity alternating with the bottom of your food sac dropping to the floor never seem to abate, but at least you can somewhat brace yourself for it. It helps to focus on extracting Karkat from his abject terror, which he always seems to get embarrassed about afterward. At least it’s better than seeing him get discouraged and depressed.

In between landings, the flight is mostly boring. You are sitting on the cold metal floor in a front corner where one solid block wall meets the bars of the cell. Your knees are folded up to your chest and your arms are crossed over them. You sigh heavily as Karkat paces back and forth behind you, turning around every four steps. His heavy footfalls echo hollowly through the prison. You have to be very careful every time you turn your head, lest your horns trip him up or smack into the walls. It’s hard to even stand up all the way in here.

Your surroundings are not terribly unpleasant, although they are slightly less hygienic than you would like. The air smells as dank and stale. The floor has been swept clean, but there are old blood stains all over the walls, sometimes forming crude graffiti. Most of the floor space is taken up by a recuperacoon that looks far too small for you to fit in with your wings even if you were desperate enough to want to touch the crusty old sopor slime, a load gaper awkwardly placed right in the middle of the back wall, and a hard bench along the wall opposite the recuperacoon. Sleeping is difficult. You tend to spread out on the floor as best as you can while Karkat lays on his side on the bench, facing the wall. Privacy is nonexistent; you can count at least three cameras pointed directly at you. Well… it could, maybe, be worse? You don’t say it aloud. That probably _would_ make it worse.

****

“Learn anything useful?”

“Yeah, they’re still okay. They’re keeping them together. I couldn’t move the cameras or use the microphone, but at least I could see them.” Sollux falls into an anxious silence.

You answer the question he hasn’t asked. “The trip should take about a perigree.” So, three more weeks.

A new file opens on the server. A flood of red and blue text starts pouring in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, ladies and gents. I'm heading out on holidays tomorrow and I won't be back until January 4th. I will still have internet access but I might not have enough time/peace and quiet to post anything in the interim.
> 
> Meanwhile you can entertain yourselves with my Old Fart Tuna playlist, hand picked from my dad's MP3 collection. :B <3
> 
>  
> 
> [Surfaris – Wipe Out](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p13yZAjhU0M)  
> [Blood Sweat and Tears – And When I Die](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS-gwb8eSc0)  
> [Led Zeppelin – Bring it On Home](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS57EuE_8NE)  
> [The Ventures –Caravan*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnekFd6_ABc)  
> [Perez Prado – Guaglione](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbUWEN9dqPE)  
> [Steppenwolf – Born to be Wild](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMbATaj7Il8)
> 
>  
> 
> *I couldn't find a decent version of Caravan without the ridiculously long solos in it. If you want to skip the ridiculously long solos you can go to 7:06 or just listen to the first minute and a half or so.  
> 


	15. Chapter 15

“What if I write a virus to blow up the Condesce’s computer? It would be hilarious!” 

“Won’t work. She’s on a separate circuit.”

“But what if I could find a work around and do it anyway?”

“You’ll get in such a massive steaming shitload of trouble that the Condesce will turn off most of your thinksponge for half a sweep.”

“We would have to land for repairs!”

“No we wouldn’t, that’s what she has all these on board mechanics for.”

“Then we could escape onto a planet.”

“You mean after you come up with a brilliant plan to _get us out of the helmsblock_?”

“Yes!” Hacking into the ship’s controls was a failure. You are convinced it’s because you simply haven’t tried hard enough.

“Are you even listening to yourself? Go to _sleep_ , you crazy-ass bucket hat. It’s been sixty eight hours.”

“No.”

“Does your code even make sense anymore? I’m reading an average of three typos per minute now.”

“Fuck off.”

“Just saying.”

“Go away.”

“Hehehehehe you made a funny.”

These infernal biowires may have a hold of your wrists, but that sure doesn’t prevent you from flipping him a very effective double bird. God, you’re tired, but you can’t stop now. You can’t. You know where you are on the ship, you know where you are in space, you know where Karkat and Tavros are, and you have the capability of tracking all the Fleet ships and the trolls on them who could come after you. You have eighteen more nights before they get dumped on a shitty planet with no food, no water and no shelter from the freezing cold, and they’re getting _farther away_ every minute. You really need a viable escape plan.

When he isn’t trying to goad you to sleep, all your ancestor ever seems to do is project half sad, half amused infinite patience in your direction as if there’s nothing he hasn’t already tried, then try to teach you more about piloting the ship as if there’s nothing else he can do. It distracts you. It _pisses you off_. Why can’t he _help_ instead of sitting there mentally shooting down all your ideas?

You become aware of the eerie silence in the helmsblock; all you can hear is the constant low hum of machinery. _Good._ Wait, fuck, your ancestor nodded off, that _complete asshole_ , and the sudden increase in the amount of power the ship siphons from you is like a load of lead bricks to the thinksponge, very effectively squashing your racing train of thought. Foggy and unfocused, you stare at the back wall and fight against the dull ache growing behind your eyes. Maybe if you just close them for a second…

****

When you wake up, everything feels so _light_ it pisses you off.

Your ancestor is grinning at you with a dull glow of mirth in his eyes. “Now _that_ was the most effective nap I’ve ever taken. I’d pat myself on the back, but, you know.” He wriggles his fingers for emphasis.

“Stop acting like this is a big fucking joke! I’ve lost so much time-”

“Kid.” He cuts you off. His grin has crashed and burned spectacularly. “I was trying to make this massive pile of hoofbeast easier for you to deal with- fuck knows there was nobody around to do that for me- but it looks like I have to come right out and say it. **Give up.** Did you know that half of the security features developed for Fleet starships to date are because of shit I’ve already tried?”

“There has to be _something_ you haven’t tried yet!”

“Don’t you understand? It doesn’t matter! We’re fucked even if we find something that works! When Queen Bilgeswiller tracked you down on Alternia, she already knew exactly where you were as soon as we were inside the orbit of the green moon! And by the way, she could outblast both of us together in a fight, it just so happens that she’s too lazy to power her own fucking ship!”

“I know,” you sigh with frustration, wishing you could rub at your temples.

“Then what’s the point?”

“How long have you been here, exactly?”

“I was fifteen sweeps old when she got me, so it’s been a million and seven sweeps now.”

“How do you feel about staying here for the next million sweeps?”

“I’m pretty sure I actually will be dead before then, thank fuck.”

“What if _I’m_ not?”

“Oh… fuck.”

“See? I have to at least _try_ to get out of here. Or if I’m doomed to be stuck here for the next million sweeps after all, the least you can do is to stop actively dashing my last hopes against the rocks like a cross-eyed wriggler with five missing legs and no lusus. Better yet, you could help me come up with a plan.”

“Are you willing to try something even if you die? Or if the Condesce takes over your think pan and fucks it up so irreversibly that all you have left is the empty husk of your body, still leaching psionics into the ship’s batteries?”

“Yes, and practically speaking, I don’t see how those two things would feel any different. Don’t you feel the same way?”

“Yeah, but it’s different for me because I’m an old fart.”

“So then you’ll help me?”

He hesitates. “Well… I can try…”

You frown. “What’s the problem?”

“Sollux, I’ve been doing this for a million sweeps. I don’t think I can remember how to do anything else anymore. Did you know the mechanics had to move me over from the middle of the helmsblock to make room for you? Well when they did, they had to disconnect me for a short time. It _hurt_ and it was _terrifying_. I can’t see worth shit without all these cameras. My arms and legs are so damned useless I’d need psionics to lift my own ass off the ground. Won’t I just get in your way?”

“Seriously MT? I need you to keep me from getting so lost my left foot is in a black hole and my right is in a sun.” That, and there’s one thing you know for sure your ancestor couldn’t have tried before on his own. 

TA: tell me everythiing you know about paralleliing helm2troll2.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder, my availability will probably still be spotty until January 4th. Enjoy your holidays everyone!


	16. Chapter 16

Ψ: THII5 5HIIT II5 UNCHARTED TERRIITORY FOR ME, KIID.

Ψ: A5 FAR A5 II KNOW, WE’RE THE ONLY ONE5 PARALLELIING ON A 5TAR5HIIP, BUT THE MECHANIIC5 MU5T KNOW 5OMETHIING 5IINCE THEY MANAGED 2 IIN5TALL U5 WIITHOUT ANYTHIING BLOWIING UP 5O FAR.

Ψ: 5EE IIF YOU CAN U5E YOUR MAD HACKER 5KIILL5 2 CRACK OPEN THEIIR DATA  
Ψ: AND IIF THAT DOE5N’T WORK TRY GETTIING PA5T THE IINTERNET CEN5OR5 AND DO A 5EARCH.

Sollux mentally tears off into cyberspace like a woofbeast hot on the trail of a bleeding nut creature; you hang back and brood. How long has it been since the last time you seriously considered the possibility of an escape, however short lived? At first Kankri’s death, his crushed revolution and the unknown fate of your other friends were too raw in your mind for you to gather the motivation for more than a token attempt. What was the _point_? Who would you escape _for_? Where would you _go_?

It wasn’t until the first time the Empress tried to use you as a weapon to crack down on the next revolution that you were angry enough to put up a real fight. You never made it very far. Since then you’ve resisted her orders every time she wants to put your soul through the same kind of torture, but only just enough for her to make you do it instead of going through with it yourself, and even then you never had even a remote hope that you would manage to get out of the helmsblock ever again.

So then… the last time you seriously tried to escape must have still been pretty early on in your career. Since then you’ve learned a great deal about piloting and navigating through the universe. You know all about the Empress’s usual schedule and habits. You know the maximum range of her telepathic abilities. If you manage to ditch her, get out of range and take your starmap database and its backup copy with you, she will be constrained by light speed just as much as you are, but without even a fraction of the shortcuts you’ve been honing all your life. You’re also sure you could outmaneuver her any day of the sweep. You know which borders of the Empire are giving her so much trouble that she won’t bother trying to expand in that direction any further. You can pick up on any language and try to shamelessly beg the locals to take you in. Holy balls, does this mean becoming a crusty old fossil might actually increase your chances of getting out of here?

No, you do _not_ want to get your hopes up. You don’t want to get your descendant’s hopes up either. Someone has to be the level headed one around here. You wait patiently for Sollux to come up with answers. His ideas will have to get past your cold logic and memories of previous failures before you even think about letting him put both your asses on the line.


	17. Chapter 17

TwinArmageddons [TA] began trolling ΨIIONIIC [Ψ] on Terminal Helmsblock 1.

TA: holy fuck thii2 ii2 dii2gu2tiing  
TA: look at thii2 piile of hoofbea2t 2hiit ii downloaded off the mechaniic hub  
TA:  
Psionelectric Design Handbook

Sizing a Power Generation Facility

As a general rule of thumb, the Psionelectric Engineeradicator should expect to operate one low grade psionic per thousand hives, one mid grade psionic per ten thousand hives, or one helm grade psionic per hundred thousand hives.

A typical power generation facility will operate with a minimum of two psionics, with one in operation and the other on standby during a scheduled sleep cycle. Often many more psionics are required to achieve the desired capacity of the power generation facility.

Although psionics may be wired to operate independently, there are many advantages to wiring multiple psionics in parallel.

1\. Reliability: Individual components of the power system can be selected to operate at full power or to operate critical loads only in the event that one of the power sources fails.  
2\. Ease of maintenance: A primary power source can easily be taken out of service for maintenance without interrupting the operation of the secondary power source.  
3\. Reduced wear and tear: A psionic is much less likely to suffer from burnout and cycling fatigue when subjected to a reduced, shared power load rather than being used near capacity or subjected to rapidly varying loads.  
4\. Cost and Availability: Low grade psionics are always in stock, less costly and dangerous to ship and install, and can be obtained more quickly than mid grade or helm grade psionics.

Ψ: WELL II5N’T THAT FLATTERIING  
Ψ: POLII5H ME UP LIIKE A DIIAMOND AND 5ET ME IIN GOLD, BIITCHE5!! II’M HELM GRADE!!  
Ψ: HONE5TLY THE WAY THEY REFER 2 U5 LIIKE IINTERCHANGEABLE PIIECE5 OF MACHIINERY DOE5N’T 5URPRII5E ME AT ALL  
Ψ: IIT’5 NOT LIIKE THEY TREAT REGULAR RECRUIIT5 MUCH BETTER

TA: ii can’t believe all thii2 tiime ii’ve been plugging everythiing iin my hiive2tem iintwo a bunch of iimprii2oned p2iioniic2  
TA: everythiing  
TA: my game grub2  
TA: my hu2ktop  
TA: my re2piiteblock liight2  
TA: my thermal hull  
TA: do you even know how much power my beenary 2erver2 u2ed two eat up?

Ψ: PROBABLY A5 MUCH A5 MY 5TARMAP?  
Ψ: DON’T FEEL BAD ABOUT IIT, IIT’5 NOT LIIKE YOU COULD HAVE MADE MUCH OF A DIIFFERENCE BY TURNIING EVERYTHIING OFF.

TA: but have iit even wor2e than u2  
TA: they can’t even make iit two 2pace  
TA: we have two get them out

Ψ: II ADMIIRE YOUR MII5GUIIDED YOUTHFUL OPTIIMII5M  
Ψ: IIT MAKE5 ME NO5TALGIIC A5 FUCK  
Ψ: DON’T GET AHEAD OF YOUR5ELF, KIID.

TA: ii ju2t gave you the bad new2, MT  
TA: the good new2 ii2  
TA: ii think ii found a way two e2cape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terawatt Outlaws has more than ten times as many views as Alternia Incognita. I don't even.
> 
> Thanks for the continued support you guys! There will intermittently be more art too, I promise! :D


	18. Chapter 18

TA: fir2t of all  
TA: have you ever tried two overload the 2hiip’2 capaciitor2 two triip the ciircuiit breaker2?

Ψ: YEAH  
Ψ: II WOULDN’T RECOMMEND THAT  
Ψ: YOU’LL FEEL LIIKE 5HIIT FROM LO5IING THAT MUCH POWER  
Ψ: BLEEDIING FROM THE EYE5 AND EVERYTHIING  
Ψ: AND A BUNCH OF ALARM5 GO OFF ALL OVER THE PLACE.

TA: ii thought 2o.  
TA: which bring2 me two my 2econd iidea.  
TA: ii had two read through a few chapter2 two get an iidea how parallelliing work2  
TA: iif ii’m riight  
TA: ii found a way around the alarm2.  
TA: we’re hooked up two 2ome 2wiitche2 that automatically balance the power load between u2  
TA: iit work2 by makiing our red-blue alternatiing frequency and our wave pha2e match up exactly  
TA: we can fuck iit up iif we try hard enough  
TA: we need to feed iit extra power  
TA: and 2hiift our pha2e exactly riight 2o that you’re blue when ii’m red and viice ver2a  
TA: we’ll cancel each other out  
TA: and the 2hiip wiill thiink iit’2 not gettiing any power from u2.  
TA: keep that up for long enough and the 2hiip wiill thiink we’re dead  
TA: then the biiowiire2 wiill let go

Ψ: HOW WOULD THII5 NOT 5ET OFF ALARM5 ALL OVER THE PLACE?

TA: there’2 no alarm 2iignal for u2 beiing dead  
TA: the 5hiip wiill thiink we were kiilled on purpo2e

TA: al2o  
TA: the more we can charge up the 2hiip’2 capaciitor2 before we pull thii2 off, the longer iit wiill be before the crew notiice2.  
TA: the 2hiip draw2 all the power out of the capaciitor2 before 2wiitchiing two emergency power from the batteriie2  
TA: 2o everythiing wiill run completely normally for up two a few hour2 before the liight2 diim and all non e22entiial 2y2tem2 are powered off

Ψ: PROMII5IING, BUT THAT 5OUND5 HARD 2 DO.  
Ψ: II THIINK WE’RE GOIING 2 HAVE 2 5NEAK IIN 5OME PRACTIICE BEFORE THE REAL DEAL  
Ψ: WIITH ENOUGH CHARGE IIN THE CAPACIITOR5 TO COVER OUR A55E5

TA: yeah

Ψ: ALRIIGHT  
Ψ: LET’5 A55UME WE CAN MAKE THII5 WORK  
Ψ: WE E5CAPE FROM THE HELM5COLUMN5 AND YOU’LL BE MY EYE5  
Ψ: OBVIIOU5LY WE’LL NEED 2 WAIIT UNTIIL WE’RE PLANET5IIDE  
Ψ: AND FII5H FACE AND HER IIMPERIIAL NOOKLIICKER5 HAVE DII5EMBARKED ON THEIIR OFFIICIIAL 5NOBBY HIIGHBLOOD BU5IINE55  
Ψ: BUT THEN WHAT?  
Ψ: HOW DO WE 5NEAK PA5T THE GUARD5?

TA: what kiind of guard2?

Ψ: U5UALLY ONE LAUGH5A55IIN AND A ΨIICHIC AT THE HATCH 2 THE BRIIDGE

TA: 2o chucklevoodoo2 and miind control.  
TA: then tryiing two off them wiith whatever p2iioniic2 we have left ii2 a bad iidea.  
TA: let’2 go for an emergency e2cape pod iin2tead  
TA: nobody wiill expect one of tho2e two be deployed on land.

Ψ: THO5E ARE BIIG ENOUGH 2 FIIT ONE TROLL THE 5IIZE OF THE GRAND HIIGHBLOOD  
Ψ: THEY HAVE A BARE BONE5 LIIFE 5UPPORT 5Y5TEM  
Ψ: BATTERY POWER WE CAN RECHARGE A5 MUCH A5 WE WANT  
Ψ: AND FOOD  
Ψ: ONE WEEK’5 WORTH A VERY LARGE TROLL  
Ψ: PROBABLY MORE LIIKE 2 OR THREE FOR U5, CON5IIDERIING THAT MY PROTEIIN 5AC MU5T HAVE 5HRUNK TO THE 5IIZE OF A RAII5IIN BY NOW  
Ψ: 5TUPIID 5HIITY BIIOWIIRE DIIET  
Ψ: HOLY FUCK, II MI55 A PROPER GRUBLOAF

TA: 2top that.  
TA: you’re makiing me hungry

Ψ: HEY AT LEA5T YOU REMEMBER THE LA5T TIIME YOU ATE 5OMETHIING!  
Ψ: ANYWAY  
Ψ: IIT’5 WAY MORE THAN ENOUGH TO GET U5 OUT OF AQUABIITCH’5 ΨIICHIC RANGE  
Ψ: IIN FACT II COULD GET U5 MO5T OF THE WAY 2 COLD A5 GLOBE5 V BY THEN  
Ψ: BUT WE’LL NEED 2 5TOP AND FIND A BETTER 5HIIP 2 PIICK UP YOUR HATEBUDDIIE5  
Ψ: THERE’5 NO WAY FOUR OF U5 WIILL FIIT IIN ONE 5HIITTY E5CAPE POD.

TA: yeah TV’2 horn2 would probably kill 2omebody  
TA: that would 2uck  
TA: 2o ii2 that all?

Ψ: THERE’5 ONE MORE THIING  
Ψ: LET’5 TAKE MY 5TARMAP 5ERVER  
Ψ: _AND THE BACKUP COPY!_  
Ψ: THEY’LL NEVER RECOVER ALL OF MY 5HORTCUT5 EVEN IIF LOW TIIDE BREATH HER5ELF WORK5 ON IIT FOR TWENTY 5WEEP5!

TA: ehehehe  
TA: 2econded.

TwinArmageddons [TA] stopped trolling ΨIIONIIC [Ψ] on Terminal Helmsblock 1.


	19. Chapter 19

Practicing your phase shifting helps you keep your mind off the fact that it’s going to take far too long before Her Imperious Condescension’s next scheduled stop on the surface of a planet as opposed to some shitty orbiting colony or a moon base; too sealed off and too well monitored for you to set your plan into motion.

“You start this time.”

“Alright here I go.” You focus on Mituna as he begins to charge up. The glow of his eyes brightens. Air begins to shimmer around his entire helmscolumn. By now you’ve gotten good enough at synchronizing that you’ve learned to trust in the way the way the waves feel rather than the flash of red and blue, alternating too quickly for your think pan to react to by vision alone. You join in, pushing back against his power like you’re playing tug of war. Your waves amplify each other at first until, concentrating intensely, you shift your phase just slightly. The waves turn into an interference pattern, full of peaks and valleys and bumps. Good, almost there. Just a little more-

-And the Empress bursts in to the helmsblock. “Tuna! Pollock!” Not even the nest of biowires can stop your startled jump. You hiss and swear under your breath. Shit shit shit, if she decides to dip into either of your minds right now you’ll be caught red handed and your whole plan is ruined. Predictably, your interference pattern completely goes to shit, yet somehow you and Mituna manage to cut off your conscious push of power at almost exactly the same time.

“It’s been susfishiously quiet in here! Are you kids gettin’ along?”

“Hah! You blinked!” Your ancestor improvises without missing a beat.

You roll your eyes. “Really, MT? You’re a million and something sweeps old and you want to play Stare and Don’t Blink?”

“Admit it, you’re just jealous ‘cause you lost.”

“Extenuating circumstances. I get a do-over.”

“Nope! Best two out of three.”

“Fuck, fine.”

Apparently satisfied, Her Imperious Condescension sashays out of the room with a grin on her face. You wait until the last echo of her footsteps has disappeared from the hallway, then you let out a huge sigh. “Jegus dick. I feel like my blood pusher is the tall, dark and silent hero of a western movie, flying off into the sunset with a concupiscent partner in each arm, never to be seen again. I’m going to have to call it a night.”

“Sure thing, kid. The look on your face was pretty funny though.”

You flip him off out of habit, but your restless mind has already moved on to Karkat and Tavros. You take a deep breath, release it slowly and remind yourself that you promised not to obsessively check on them more than once per night. Locking onto the coordinates of the transport ship you last saw them on, you make quick work of hacking back into the cameras and hitching a ride.

They aren’t in the same prison cell anymore. They aren’t anywhere in the prison anymore. They aren’t even on the ship. Oh god.

“MT?” Your voice sounds like it’s coming from very far away. “What did you say the coordinates of Cold as Globes V are again?”

He nudges your mental presence over to one side to see what you’re seeing. “Yeah, that transport has already started on its return trip. Don’t worry too much, kid. If they’re anything like their ancestors, there’s no way your hatebuddies will let a little frostbite stop them.”

You really hope he’s right.


	20. Chapter 20

Uh, surprise? You have just been pushed down a slide right after Karkat, and it isn’t the fun kind. It dumps you into a dark, cold holding chamber, and when the airlock opens it gets even colder. A metal hatch above your head slides shut. The floor drops away into a steep ramp, and you slide right out of the ship into a swirling blizzard. You can barely see the ship you were just ejected from through all of the flying snow as it closes its hatch after you and flies away in a hurry.

It doesn’t _get_ this cold on Alternia, but you’ve heard stories about mounds of frozen water falling from the sky on other planets in the Empire. When you heard the crew mention planet Cold as Globes V you were expecting to feel something like reaching into the freezer of your thermal hull. You weren’t expecting the wind against your face to _sting_. Your day cloak is not much help either, but it’s better than nothing. At least the prison guards let you keep it even though they took everything else away. You button your hood up over your horns with fumbling fingers that are already starting to go numb. Shuffling through knee deep snow, you make your way over to Karkat and huddle up against him out of pure necessity.

“Please fucking tell me you have some sick fires up your sleeve right now!” Karkat shouts over the howling wind. You watch, morbidly fascinated, as his breath rises in clouds that rapidly freeze into more snow.

“I’ll, maybe, see what I can do!” You shout back at him. Touching your hands to your forehead, you reach out and try to Commune with something, anything in this alien place. You read a sluggish reptilian presence below your feet, hibernating in the permafrost as it waits for the brief, frantic bloom of spring. Somewhere off to your right a flock of sleek, shin-high blubbery animals dives through a wide chasm in the thick sheet of ice into a lake, disturbing a school of alien sea life that had been feeding on algae growing on the underside of the ice.

Finally you lock onto a herd of large, extremely wooly animals casually grazing on some lichen covered rocks. You coax one over and convince it to let you and Karkat climb up out of the snow onto its back. It has _so much hair_ , you could get lost in it. Karkat uses the mats in its fur as a step ladder to get to the top and sink in then helps drag you up after himself. Thankfully the beast doesn’t seem to notice or mind. The wooly beast is half the size of a respiteblock. There’s more than enough room for both of you to flop face down next to each other.

You feel much warmer already, but this is still far from perfect. Your back is still mostly exposed to the bitter cold, so you keep having to awkwardly flip over so you don’t freeze over on one side. It’s a bit greasy and it smells funny up here. You ease off on your communing enough to allow the beast to wander wherever it wants to go, but you keep a friendly presence in its head to remind it not to make any sudden movements that would throw you off. The beast wanders back to its herd which, having grazed away all the lichen in the area, moves on to find a greener pasture. Hopefully the herd will lead you somewhere useful.

“I can’t believe there are four other planets this shitty,” Karkat complains close to your ear.

“Oh, I think, that it isn’t so bad.” Crunch. Your wooly beast just stepped on something. When you and Karkat look down you can just barely make out the fragments of a frozen troll horn at the bottom of a massive footprint.

“ _Really._ ”

“Uhhhhh, let’s just, pretend we didn’t see that. But I’m serious, I mean, about how it isn’t so bad. There’s actually, really, a lot of life if you see past all the snow.”

Karkat sighs, tearing his eyes away from the footprint as it recedes into the distance. “Anything that looks edible?”

“I uh,” you fidget, “don’t feel very good about that idea. I like to, always, commune with animals because they’re all my friends!”

“Oh my god. Tavros, are you a fucking _herbivore_?”

“Well, sometimes, but uh, not for too long? Because Tinkerbull says it’s not, he thinks, very good for me. Mostly I just don’t like to kill things, for food, for myself.”

“If you can’t stomach the idea of culling a doe-eyed innocent creature for dinner, fine. At least lead one to me and let me do it so we don’t fucking starve.”

“That, really, isn’t any better! I would be like Vriska when she, you know, jumped me off the cliff even though I didn’t want to, except, with an animal.”

“Unclog your aural tubes because I’m only going to say this once. _This is about survival._ Life handed us this massive sack of hoofbeast manure. We can sit here fondling our globes until they freeze off, or we can make use of whatever skills we have to flip this shit, light it on fire and make a tent out of the rancid canvas until Life decides to throw us something better, even if it means lowering our standards and feeling like shit about ourselves. There are no other choices.”

You reply very quietly, already feeling guilty. “Uhhhh, okay… Well I did see, we could start, I guess, with a waddling blubber beast.”

Karkat’s gruff voice softens into something kinder. “You don’t have to do it right away, alright? We need to find a better place to warm up first.”


	21. Chapter 21

It’s a good thing Mituna takes over the landing sequence out of force of habit, because if he left it up to you, you would have let the ship drop like a rock for as long as possible before hitting the brakes at the last minute. You are charged to the brim with nervous energy, fidgeting in your helmscolumn. You want this landing to be over as quickly as possible. You want all of the crew to clear out of the ship and get far, far away. You want _out_.

Ψ: 5HOO5H YOUR RUMBLE 5PHERE5, KIID.

The Starship Condescension gently touches down, depressurizes, and opens up her main hatch. Both of you keep your eyes plastered to the cameras, watching the crew trickle out and disperse. Even then, you are forced into inaction, biding your time until each one blinks out of the ship’s detection range. Finally, you are left staring holes into the back of the two remaining guards’ heads through the main bridge camera. You wait for hours until they start to look bored and inattentive.

Mituna turns toward you with a wide grin and waggles his eyebrows. That signal is all you need. Careful not to expend too much of your energy, both of you charge up the ship’s capacitors to a fourth of their capacity, enough to keep the crew unawares for about an hour. Then the real fun begins. You slip right from charging up the capacitor into pushing back against Mituna’s power without even having to type a word, and he’s already on your wavelength. He shifts so smoothly into the opposing phase that you don’t even see a blip of interference.

Your combined power dissipates into useless light, heat and vibration. Ten minutes later, you start to develop a headache from concentrating so hard. You grit your teeth and hold steady through it. Twenty minutes later, the helmsblock becomes uncomfortably warm, threatening to slow your thoughts to a fuzzy crawl. Thirty minutes later, you begin to worry that you haven’t charged the capacitors enough after all, but it’s too late to turn back. After forty grueling minutes, the biowires finally, _finally_ give up on you, release their hold from your skin and helmets and retract into the ceiling.

The whole room is like a sauna. You may feel like collapsing to the ground while you catch your breath, but your ancestor is the one who ends up doing a dramatic faceplant with his arms still stretched out stiffly in front of him. There is so little muscle left in his bony legs that you honestly can’t blame him. He shivers a little, fingers curling against the metal tiles. Gold blood trickles from a large, circular puncture in his back where the largest cable had been anchored. It makes your own wire wounds hurt worse just _looking_ at him. “Shit, MT. Are you going to be okay?” You grab hold of his arm and help him up.

“Two seconds,” he rasps. He takes a deep, steadying breath then straightens up farther, leaning against you for support. He still seems unstable on his feet, but he takes the opportunity to roll his shoulders and rub some life back into his wrists. Then, feeling around with his psionics until he finds what he’s looking for, he severs the helmsblock camera from the corner above the sliding door. He slowly floats it into his hand and tucks it under his arm. “Alright we’ve got my eye, let’s go get my think pan.”

“Wow, you really have been here for too long.”

“One million sedentary, pan numbing sweeps. I’ve gotten so used to putting up with this bullshit-”

“That it’s become… second nature?”

“Damn right.”

You wrench your psionic helmet off, discard it in the helmsblock and lead the way. Mituna keeps his helmet on. The two of you float silently through the hallway, trailing drops of gold blood on the floor. As you go farther from the helmsblock, you strain your ears for any sign that one of the guards is patrolling in your direction. So far so good.

When you reach the server room, you lose a few precious minutes while Mituna flips his shit and tries to stop you from helping him disconnect his precious starmap library even though he’s fumbling around blind looking for the cords. “God damn it MT, stop acting like a cluckbeast lusus. I probably know how to handle a silicomb server better than you do.” You don’t mention that time when you were six and you managed to slice one in half by goofing off with your shuriken indoors like a chump. After he finally concedes, you pop out all of the remaining connections with your psionics and neatly coil up all the wires to float along with you. This set off all the alarms at once. “SHIT!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will feature a full color illustration which I am still working on.


	22. Chapter 22

[](http://imgur.com/9WiX9Vn)

Your frantic flight toward the escape pods would have looked hilarious in any other situation, with Mituna dangling from your hand like a flag and an entire game of Snake worth of electronic effluvia trailing after you down the hallway. Unfortunately the joke is on you. The Starship Condescension’s resident Laughsassin drives an icicle of despair from your think pan straight into your blood pusher.

_Karkat’s bright blood has already frozen into crystals as the drifting snow begins to cover his body._

“Sollux!” Someone is calling to you from very far away.

_Scavengers have picked Tavros’s corpse clean, leaving nothing but a bleached skull with massive horns, sinking deeper and deeper into the silt from one freeze thaw cycle to another until his remains are buried beneath the permafrost, only to be found millions of sweeps later by an intrepid scientist, studying the growth rings with clinical detachment._

“It’s NOT REAL!”

_It’s your fault. All your fault._ Everything feels so heavy.

“Come back here god damn it! I need your eyes!”

_You should give up and let them catch you. There was never a point to escaping. There was never a point to your existence. You don’t exist._

****

“Shit, shit, shit SHIT!” The procession grinds to a complete halt with Sollux at the front, muttering tonelessly to himself in response to a voice only he can hear. Trying to snap him out of it is useless. There is no choice but to take over and bring him with you, even though you’re flying blind. You apply a field of force around and behind you to feel the relative weights, shapes and locations of all the disassembled compartments of your server where they fell to the ground, and you carefully pick everything up. You pray that nothing is broken. You pray that you haven’t missed anything. Gathering up Sollux’s limp body, you continue to float forward so much more slowly than you’d like while trying to concentrate on mentally juggling all the shit you’re carrying and trying to grope your way along the wall toward the escape pods at the same time without your brain hooked up to a computer processor. God damn it, all this hand eye coordination would be so much easier with working eyes!

When the chucklevoodoos try to hit you next, it only serves to make you angry. Everything you have ever been afraid of has already happened. Everyone you remotely care about has already died aside from Sollux and his revolutionary descendant friends. There is nowhere left inside you for fear to latch on other than the goal right in front of you. You speed up recklessly with a snarl, hoping you’ll be able to catch yourself in time to avoid a crash.

Then Sollux snaps upright and turns on you with an optic blast. After so much practice synchronizing with him the change in electric field around his horns warns you long before the discharge. You lift up your helmet and counter with a blast that deflects it away toward the ceiling; there is a sound like an explosion, dust rains down on your head and you smell smoke. Those bulge licking psychics always fight dirty. Kankri wouldn’t be happy about this if he knew, but it looks like you have to resort to violence to get out of this mess before the psychic decides to switch to you or worse, call the Empress for backup.

You sigh. You take a deep breath. You set down everything you were carrying. One last time, you use your psionics to pick up the whole ship and everyone in it. It’s so _foreign_ to feel the shape of the Starship Condescension as a large bulk object with you and three moving targets in it instead of an extension of your body made from wires and energy sinks and banks of data. Pinpointing the location of both guards, you grab hold of the pressure points on either side of their necks and _squeeze._ Pinch, pinch. They fall like two massive trees. Hah, how do YOU like being put to sleep on command? Sorry Kankri, but that felt incredibly satisfying.

****

You blink, shaking the fog out of your head. It isn’t enough to pull you out of your massive downswing. You’re so exhausted and you have a migraine. Where is a recuperacoon and a bottle of pain pills when you need them? Oh wait, there are none, because you’re sitting in the middle of the hallway of a space ship for some reason and you can’t quite remember how you got there. Ugh it doesn’t matter. You’re just going to lie down right here on the floor, shut your eyes against the light, rub at your temples and wait for the pain to kill you.

“Arrgh knocking out that laughsassin was supposed to get rid of the motherfucking chucklevoodoos!” Mituna urgently shakes you by the shoulder. You hiss at him in protest.

“Sollux what the fuck are you doing, we need to get out of here!”

“For the love of fuck, stop _shouting_ MT, my head is about to split open.”

He takes matters into his own claws and starts floating you down the hallway. “Good, you’re okay.”

“How does this look _okay_ to you?”

“You’re not trying to blow me up with your psionics is how.”

Now you feel guilty. “Oh shit, I did that?”

“Nevermind, it wasn’t _you_ you, it was psychic guard you. Hurry up and help me. I can’t fucking see, remember? Did I drop anything? Fuck, are the servers okay?”

You make a supreme effort to pull yourself out of your funk enough to focus on escaping. “Nothing looks broken. I’ll take it from here.” You half run, half fly into the escape pod, disengage it from the mother ship and get the fuck out of there. Mituna keeps his precious server from getting jostled around while you rocket the escape pod up out of the atmosphere as fast as you can safely go. You fly up out of the plane of the solar system, avoiding the vast majority of the asteroids.

Mituna can’t see where the pod is going, the escape pod’s autopilot program is useless for your purposes, and you have no idea which way you’re supposed to go. It takes a lot of explaining and frustration to get the escape pod flying on the correct trajectory. Which of these ten billion fucking dots do you connect to find the Spiral Horn Constellation? You don’t even remotely recognize any of the stars in this sky.

When you finally manage to steer the pod in the right direction, you and Mituna put your psionics together and give the pod one long, steady push forward until it hits light speed. With nowhere further to accelerate to and no artificial gravity, all of the loose objects in the escape pod start to float around your heads. The surreal, dreamlike sensation feels enough like floating in sopor that it lulls you right to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here's the full view of the drawing.](http://imgur.com/fVN5wtJ)
> 
> I recommend you have a look because I lost a lot of detail shrinking it to fit on the page. It took me maybe 10 hours to complete over the space of three days. I hope it was worth the wait!
> 
> 22 chapters later this fic finally meets the prompt requirements. xD;


	23. Chapter 23

When you both wake up hours later feeling more rested than you have since before you were captured, the enormity of what you just pulled off hits Mituna first. 

“Hehe.” You crack open an eye and glance at your giggling ancestor. “Ehehe.” He has removed his helmet. You didn’t expect him to have so much hair wildly floating around his face. “Ehehehe hahahahaha suck my wriggling bulge platonically, Princess Slugfuck! We’re free! We’re freeeeeeeeee!” Mituna’s version of victoriously pumping his fists in the air involves both middle fingers. You approve.

[](http://imgur.com/1CiOIiz)

Your eyes go wide and you smack yourself in the forehead with your palm. “Holy shit, KK was right.”

“Huh?”

“Fucking twofold vision. He keeps telling me to stop jumping to the worst possible conclusion every time I have a premonition.”

“Oh god I do _not_ miss those.”

“I had a vision about you, MT. It was depressing as fuck. You have no idea how glad I am that nothing is turning out how I expected it to. Actually you’re nothing like I expected either.”

“Was I that bad? What the hell was I doing, snoring and drooling? Sitting there looking half dead because my thinkpan buggered off into a camera or some shit? Either of those would have been depressingly accurate you know, I do that a lot.”

“No, nothing like that. You were staring into space, cold and bitter. You showed me the whole universe, and how I’m just a microscopic, invisible speck somewhere in the middle of it. I felt so insignificant, like nothing I ever did would make the slightest difference.”

“No, fuck that. Look at you; you just broke us out of the fucking Starship Condescension! Sollux, you are the best descendant and anyone who tells me otherwise can go fuck themselves in the waste chute with a rabid porcupine.”

“…Thanks,” you mutter back at Mituna very quietly. You have an insufferably huge ego and yet you can’t take a compliment. How’s that for an oxymoron? The subject is officially closed. “Hey shouldn’t there be a first aid kit in here somewhere? We’re all covered in crusty blood, it’s disgusting.”

“You can try and look in the cabinet in the back, but gauze and rubbing alcohol are a really shitty substitute for a real ablution. Fuck knows they won’t make _me_ smell any better. In fact, keep that shit away from me. It stings like a bitch.”

“Aren’t you worried about the biowire wounds getting infected?”

“Whose fucking ship do you think we were on? One sneeze out of either of us and somewhere in the Empire fifty docterrorists get culled. Somewhere in our lovely nutrition feeds they’ve managed to mix in inoculations against every known pathogen from every damned planet my sorry ass has ever visited. You’re never going to get so much as a fucking cold again.”

“Huh.” Who knew you would ever find something useful about being a helmsman? “Well it’s still gross.”

“Suit yourself.”

You find the first aid kit where Mituna guessed it would be. It doesn’t cooperate. As soon as you open it, the medical supplies start drifting off in all directions and you have to use a light touch of psionics to hold them down. You open up the bottle of rubbing alcohol, turn it upside down and dab at the end with a cotton swab. Nothing comes out until you force it to. Cursing under your breath, you manage to marginally clean the wounds you can easily reach on your arms and legs before you give up and put the first kit away. At least someone thought to stock the cabinet with garbage bags you can discard the used cotton swabs in. “Fucking microgravity.”

“Heh. Was it worth the effort?”

“Probably not.” Your stomach growls so loudly it startles you. “Wow fuck, I’m starving.”

“Literally. You’d better take it easy on your protein sac for a while, kid. There’s nothing worse than floating barf, especially since we’ve only got a gaper room the size of an ablution trap in here.”

“Ugh, thanks for that evocative image.”

“You’re welcome! Pass the reconstituted cluckbeast eggs please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited out the last line of this chapter because I realized I repeated the idea and phrased it better in a later chapter. Whoops!


	24. Chapter 24

The wooly beast herd plods placidly onto a well worn path through the deep snow, trampled so many times before by their broad hooves that even the compacted ice has eroded away to reveal bare black rock. You are too busy shivering and trying to keep warm to take much notice. You cling to the thick hair for what feels like hours, until your hands, feet, face and even your horns are starting to go numb. It’s getting harder and harder to focus, and you can’t remember why you find that vaguely worrying. What were you supposed to be doing again?

“…Karkat?”

“Nrrgh.”

“I think… uh… I forgot.” Before you even realize your communing link is broken, your distressed mount bucks both of you off of its back and you land on hard ground next to Karkat as the herd stampedes away into the distance. “Ouch.”

“Fuck.” Karkat curses with none of his usual eloquence.

The cold doesn’t seem to sting as bitterly here as it did in the place where you landed, but you can’t tell if it’s because the air is really warmer or you’re losing feeling in the rest of your body as well. Your limbs don’t seem to work properly as you struggle to your feet. Karkat staggers upright as well and tries to support you, or maybe he’s clinging to you for support. You stumble forward together like a three legged animal. A few steps later you realize you have no idea where you’re going.

Think, Tavros, think. Be the camp master. Screwing up your eyebrows in concentration, you look in all directions around you and try to make sense of the scenery. Wait a minute, where is all the snow? The only white you see around you is in very small, shallow patches on top of an expanse of flat rock that blooms in a startling kaleidoscope of riotous colors. The air is humid and foggy. Steadily streaming clouds of steam rise from small, round pools of water sunken in the rock. You tug Karkat toward a deep blue pool, sit down at the edge and cautiously dip in a finger. It’s hotter than ablution water, enough that it will take some getting used to but not enough to scald. Perfect!

You’re too cold and your head is still too full of fog for you to be shy. Both of you strip down to keep your clothes from getting wet and you sink into the hot water with a sigh of relief. It takes several minutes for your shivering to subside.

As soon as your think pan warms up, you have a lot on your mind. “Karkat? I’m, uh, sorry for losing my concentration and letting go of the wooly beasts.”

Karkat doesn’t seem to mind because he has drifted off into a nap, slouching so low into the hot spring that the water reaches up to his chin. He’s probably going to act like it never happened later. You keep watch over your surroundings while you let him sleep for a little while. This hot spring feels nice, but it isn’t a real solution for your survival. It’s hot enough that you have to be careful not to overstay your way into heat stroke. You need to build something with walls and a fire on the inside, or maybe find a cave. You still need food and proper winter clothing.

After the better part of an hour you’ve come all the way out on the opposite side of hypothermia, warmed over so thoroughly that your entire body feels boneless and impossibly heavy. Pulling yourself out of the comfortably hot water into the frigid winter air gives you a kick of adrenaline like you just drank a gallon of coffee. You hurriedly pull your cold clothing back on.

“Karkat, come on! We need to, really, get going.” You tug at Karkat’s arm until he very reluctantly joins you with a colorful string of complaints. Once he’s ready you set out at the most brisk pace your weak legs can handle in the same direction the wooly beasts were leading you before. You have a feeling the herd was on to something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so very tempted to start shipping these two.


	25. Chapter 25

After only a few hours, you’ve hooked Mituna back up to his interstellar database, cobbled together a helmet-camera monstrosity that lets him see out of one goggle lens and display data on the other, and hacked the escape pod’s autopilot function into happily cooperating with the starmap server. Well that was easy. You take a moment to appreciate the really fancy model of Mituna’s favorite server. It disassembles neatly into sealed, individually numbered apiary drawers that don’t leak mind honey all over the floor like they used to in your messy respiteblock.

The escape pod is not equipped to fly faster than light speed so you do it manually if you want this piece of junk to reach Karkat in two weeks instead of two sweeps. You take a look at Mituna’s starmap and realize you have no idea what he’s doing. “MT, why are we going in the complete opposite direction from where your map says Cold as Globes V is?”

Your ancestor grins. “First rule of space travel you complete greenhorn. The straightest line is _never_ the shortest way.”

Suddenly you fall on your face as gravity turns back on with a vengeance. You’ve fallen onto… dirt. “What the fuck?”

“Ah, there’s the dream bubble I’m looking for! Flighty little bitch moved almost half a light sweep since the last time I’ve been in this neighborhood.”

The round walls of the escape pod have completely disappeared around you and you find yourself lying face down in what looks to be the abandoned remains of a harvested corn field. Mituna is floating cross legged next to you, still hooked up to his server with his helmet on. He is an island of technology in the middle of nowhere, starkly out of place like a scene in a surrealist painting. You blink, and you’re floating in the middle of the escape pod again. Outside the pod’s viewports, the position of the stars now looks completely different than it did before.

“Hahahaha we weren’t even in there for a minute and you’re gaping like a grub at culling time. Thanks for fixing up my camera Sollux, because the look on your face right now is _priceless_.”

You are not amused. “This would be a great time explain to me what a dream bubble is, MT.”

Mituna’s grizzled face lights up in a way that suggests he could stay on this topic for hours. “They’re tiny little fragments of our universe where some small detail of history turned out a little bit differently and then hit a dead end. Time and space are irrelevant when you fly through a dream bubble, but then when you fly out the other side you end up in a completely different place than you were when you came in. There are billions of them at any given time, constantly collapsing and colliding and merging with each other while the horrorterrors exhale a new batch in their sleep. They never stay in one place.”

“Know why you never saw us fly through a dream bubble in one perigree on the fish dictator’s culling fork express? It’s too much of a pain in the ass is why. The Empire only uses dream bubbles in an emergency or when they want to sneak up on an unsuspecting enemy fleet. They spend a fortune building warp stations and surround them with a fuckload of guard ships because warps don’t fucking _move_ anywhere or split in half or suddenly disappear on you. As soon as we try to use a warp we’d get caught faster than you can say ‘oh shit’.”

“This is the reason I couldn’t bear to part with my star map. The standard Imperial navigation system _might_ be able to track the location of some of the larger dream bubbles on a good day. Some of the better models can even detect new dream bubbles over a limited range. But there is _no one_ else with a navigation algorithm that can calculate where we’ll end up when we get to the other side. Here, let me teach you how to use it.”


	26. Chapter 26

A couple of waking cycles later you’ve already fallen into a pattern of steering the escape pod through a convoluted network of tiny dreambubbles. After the first few momentary changes of scenery the rest of them no longer come as a surprise. Mituna seems to be deliberately avoiding the larger dream bubbles. When you ask him why he says that it’s the best way to keep the Empire from guessing your whereabouts, but you get the distinct impression that there’s something more he isn’t telling you. It bothers you, but the fact that you aren’t hearing Karkat and Tavros’s voices among the imminently deceased soothes your immediate worries enough that you leave off pressing him for answers.

In a typical cycle Mituna charges up the batteries for a few minutes in the early shift while you sleep, then you trade off and do the same in the late shift, relying on the most encrypted, complex, underutilized part of your ancestor’s custom route navigation software to figure out when you need to prod the escape pod in a completely unexpected direction. Sometimes they’re minutes apart, sometimes hours or entire waking cycles. The escape pod takes exponentially less power to run than the Starship Condescension. In between landmarks both of you are left with far too much energy to burn and nowhere to go. You start programming shitty computer games into the escape pod’s simple computer in your ample spare time.

Eating shitty space rations is the very first thing you get tired of. Mituna constantly has to remind you to eat something to keep your strength up, especially when you’re on a downswing. The escape pod’s emergency food supplies only come in three flavors: bland, dry and mushy. Eating is such a pain in the ass you almost wish you were getting your nutrients from the biowires again.

Honestly the next thing you get tired of is being constantly stuck in the company of your ancestor. He tries his best to be nice about it, but you swear to god Mituna is more desperate for attention than Eridan. You know you’re the first troll he gets to have a meaningful conversation with after being alone for so long, so you humor him for a while. You even learn a few nuggets of wisdom. Mituna seems to relish nothing more than to recount adventures from his revolutionary days, tell you about some of the more interesting planets he’s visited, and teach you the basics of a language he thinks you might need. The problem is that he’s a bubbly extrovert while you’ve always been a shut in and he just doesn’t _get_ that you need a few solid hours of peace and quiet by yourself every night to unwind.

If you let him keep talking he’s rather exhausting to be around. If you don’t he gets bored. And when Mituna is bored, he gradually becomes every bit as annoying as he was when he was first trying to get a reaction out of your newly installed carcass and then some. He tries to leave you alone for a few minutes then he forgets and interrupts you in the middle of a train of thought to start chatting about some ancient alien culture you really aren’t in the mood to listen to. You scowl at Mituna until he furrows his brows and backs off.

He pokes around in his server for a while. Then you realize that he must be playing through his music library, because he’s just started singing along to the tune of some really old song you vaguely recognize. His lisp is like the cherry on a steaming pile of creaky tone deaf garbage.

Sighing, you pinch at the bridge of your nose, try to push up your glasses and get pissed off when you remember that you’re not wearing any. “Stop that. I can’t concentrate.”

“Oh, sorry.” He starts humming instead.

“Seriously MT.”

“Aw but I like this song.” At least he stopped this time. You try to ignore him. The more time you spend curled up facing the wall trying to get some coding done, the more he seems to bounce off the walls behind you.

You mean that literally. Hasn’t the novelty of microgravity worn off for him yet? “Whoooooooo! I’m spinning!”

“Jegus fuck, can’t you do that _quietly?_ ”

“Touch, touchy. I wasn’t even talking to you.”

“Well then who the fuck were you talking to? A horrorterror?”

“Nah that would sound more like-“

“You know what? I _really_ don’t want to know.”

“Fine, it’s not like they ever really have anything interesting to say anyway. It’s all fear, darkness and devouring souls all the time.”

Come to think of it, he is _exponentially_ more desperate for attention than Eridan if he’s willing to speak in Festertongues just to have someone to talk to. You wouldn’t blame him for it if you had any patience left, but you don’t. You’re feeling irritable, antisocial, and so, so bored. “Piss off MT. I’m trying to work.”

He invades your personal space to poke at the screen of the control panel. “Why bother coding a shitty ball game when we could just throw something around in here instead?”

You shove him out of the way with your psionics so you don’t go flying off in the opposite direction. “God damn it MT, I am _not_ playing microgravity Pong with you, that’s just too stupid.”

“Your _lusus_ is stupid.”

“We had the same kind of lusus you insufferable douchebag. And yes, Biclopsdad is a pants-shitting moron. Now go away.”

“Pfft. Good one.”

“Or you could cull me out of my misery and end this stupidly long trip.”

“AHAHAHAHAHA isn’t that precious? Are we there yet, the wriggler says! Suck it up, Heiress.”

Okay yeah you kindof deserved that one from the troll who spent the past million sweeps as a Helmsman. You flip him the double bird anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Easily bored, easily amused. *ruins everything for the people who thought Mituna was attractive in the last chapter* :B


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some violence in this chapter, but I don't think it's graphic.
> 
> \------

The dream bubble you were planning to navigate through implodes right in front of your eyes. Camera. Starmap server. Whatever. It’s okay, you have a Plan B. You always have a Plan B. You’ll just have to find a different dream bubble to- oh _no_. Oh **no no no no no** not _that_ one, you never wanted to be forced to go there again and it’s gotten _bigger_ , swallowing up all your other alternatives like it has a personal vendetta against you.

Zeroing in on your sudden flood of stress pheromones, Sollux snaps out of his boredom instantly. He faintly echoes them as he knits his thin eyebrows at you. “MT, are you okay? Your face and hands have gone all cold you’re gnashing your teeth.”

You make a concerted effort to unclench your jaws. “I’ll need you to… take the helm for a while, Sollux. Stay focused and they won’t harm you.” Forgetting that he doesn’t need it, you float your helmet in his general direction. “It’s me they’re after. I’ll…. I’ll manage. Probably.”

“What the globefondling fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“I _really_ don’t want to talk about it.”

“ _Tell me anyway_ , you asshole! I need to know what we’re dealing with!”

You shrink in on yourself, unable to meet his eyes. “You’ll see for yourself.”

“That’s exactly what I’m worried about!”

“I’m sorry.” He’ll see for himself and he’ll hate you as platonically as you hate the Empress. You didn’t deserve to escape after what you’ve done. You don’t deserve your descendant’s company, let alone his tentative friendship.

***

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” It’s all you can get out of him no matter how hard you try. He repeats it like a mantra, dull eyes staring at nothing as the escape pod bursts through the membrane. While you brace yourself against the sudden onset of gravity Mituna lets himself crumple into a shivering heap.

An enraged troll materializes from nowhere to lift him by the collar, screeching obscenities into his face, while another lands a solid kick in the small of his back. Your alarm flares into rage. You hiss loudly; your entire body lights up with crackling red and blue.

“Don’t!” Mituna shouts and you ignore him; you force the two trolls back with your psionics and _they don’t move_. They turn to face you very slowly with eerily glowing white eyes. That’s when you notice the horrible electric burn scars, the scorched horns, the tattered clothing against the disjointed background of the Alternian sky and countless alien landscapes violently clashing with each other as far as the eye can see. You suddenly feel thousands, millions of eyes on you and many of them don’t even belong to trolls. You are hemmed in; you are surrounded. 

The mob closes in around you. You hear nothing over the cacophony of cursing, growling and screeching as a pair of arms grabs you by the shoulders from behind and a set of claws tears a gash through the symbol on the front of your flight suit, leaving four shallow cuts in your skin. Someone spits in your face. You are thrown to the ground, left there and occasionally stepped on while the riotous trolls pile onto Mituna instead.

He tells them he’s sorry and they won’t listen.

He tells them she made him do it and they still won’t listen.

Suddenly the entire mob freezes in place and your surroundings go so silent; it’s as if all sound has been sucked out of the air. You look up through a motionless gap between your attackers and the sight that greets your eyes makes you gape. Aradia smiles cheerfully at you and waves. She doesn’t look a night older than the last time you saw her. Her dress is grey and tattered and her eyes are a blank, glowing white. She is covered in horrible electric burns. Oh god, _you_ did that.

Wait- then that means all the _rest_ of these trolls- the realization hits you like a cold brick to the gut.

“He’s telling the truth, you know,” Aradia whispers conspiratorially to the gathering of vengeful ghosts, and disappears.

“AA! Wait!”

Her soft words seem to carry all the way to the ends of the universe. The ghost mob seems startled as they awaken. They wander away looking awed and dazed, disappearing into countless fragmented horizons.

Fighting the urge to curl up and cry, you rush over to check on the battered, bleeding, sobbing wreckage that used to be your Ancestor. He flinches away from your hand as you reach for his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he wheezes out once more, quietly, between hiccups of breath.

“I know.” you take a deep breath to steady the wavering out of your voice. “I killed my own matesprit the same way.”

Mituna doesn’t say a word. For a moment you feel the gentle buzz of psionic pressure closing in around the hand you tried to reach out to him with, as if he just gave it a reassuring squeeze. Then the feeling dissipates and Mituna lies very still, simply breathing, neither approaching you nor backing away.

You give him some space to recover, sitting down nearby without looking directly at him. Your own thoughts turn inward. Aradia’s ghost is a freshly reopened scar on your soul and you didn’t even have a chance to tell her how much you’ve missed her. You owe her so much, you always have. She was the first innocent flush crush of your childhood and without her gentle coaxing you’re certain you never would have worked up the nerves to ask Karkat out. You remember how painfully gradual it was for her to finally begin to inspire some self-confidence in you, how it all shattered so easily when you realized you killed her, and now you’re going to need help to begin to forgive yourself all over again.

Below the layer of guilt in a more primitive part of your brain, you are still buzzing with the instinctive need to put as much distance between you and that dream bubble as possible as fast as possible. You _know_ the escape pod literally can’t go any faster, but the stupid little hamster wheel in your think pan isn’t getting the memo. In fact the first few minutes are _so_ bad you have to pap your own fucking face to stop yourself from hyperventilating. What would have happened if Aradia’s ghost _hadn’t_ showed up? Could the others have killed you? You don’t want to know the answer and you don’t want to upset Mituna any further by asking him. This whole ordeal has left you shaken and you would like nothing more than to bury your face in Karkat’s shoulder and cling to him until your tears have completely soaked through his shirt. The Condesce _tore him away from you_ and the only thing either of you did wrong was to hatch with the wrong set of genetics. You burn for the chance to pull down her Empire like a house of cards.


	28. Chapter 28

You are jarred out of your thoughts as the escape pod snaps out of the opposite end of the dream bubble and everything in it is physically exactly the way you left it, including yourself and Mituna. There is no trace of the gash that had been on your flight suit seconds earlier, nor the scratches across your thorax, although you can still feel an echo of the way they stung. When you blink dazedly at Mituna you can see that his bruises have disappeared as if they never existed.

He hasn’t put his helmet back on yet, but he senses your movement with his horns. “Fun fact of the evening: Sometimes dream bubbles have ghosts in them. Usually the biggest, longest lasting ones are the ones with the most ghosts. Funny how that works, isn’t it?” Mituna scrubs at his face and lets out a long sigh. “I really didn’t want to have to drag you through this, but now you know what an undead revolution looks like. Thank _fuck_ we got out of the helmsblock, because it never gets any easier after the first time.”

He looks completely exhausted, yet somehow he’s still has his shit together more than you after being haunted by a horde of dead rebels. “Can I ask you something MT? You don’t have to answer if you think it’s too personal.”

“Sure, fire away.”

“How the hell have you been dealing with this shit for so long without a moirail?”

He shrugs, slowly leaning back into a relaxed pose as he turns his head to face your general direction. “Ah, I’m used to it. I was never really serious about quadrants to begin with. Where would I even find someone willing to squeeze uncomfortably into my pile next to all the baggage? Fuck that, I’m too old is where. It isn’t worth the effort.” 

Mituna’s face suddenly light up with mischief. “Now, concupiscent quadrants on the other hand… maybe that’s what will finally stop my blood pusher. Death by a thousand bulges. Sudden cardiac arrest and boom, the next thing you know I’m bragging about it to Meulin and embarrassing the hell out of Kankri in front of his mom. That’s how I want to go.”

“Why am I completely unsurprised? Oh my god MT, I’m going to have to gouge out my own eyes now and the next time we end up somewhere you can’t take your helmet then we’ll both be blindly stumbling assholes running into everything. That’s not what I meant when I said personal and you know it.” You give him a free pass for snickering at your expense this time because he really deserved an excuse to lighten the mood. You don’t tell him he gets bonus points for distracting you from your tailspin into Guiltsville. He can probably already tell.

“Okay fine, I’ll settle for another chance to wreck shit in the Empire. It’s a close second.” Smile gradually fading, Mituna curls his floating body around his helmet and lets fatigue overtake him.

Oh right. You were supposed to be navigating. The first thing you do is to reorient yourself to the escape pod’s whereabouts. Checking your position on the star map, you can see that the shithole you just left is tagged with the terse, heartfelt label NEVER AGAIIN.

Didn’t Mituna imply that there’s more than one of these supermassive dream bubbles full of vengeful ghosts? Morbid fascination compels you to do a search through the server data. Sure enough, although the small and mid sized dream bubbles are much more numerous, there are thousands of monstrous sized dream bubbles scattered across the universe. Of these, the ones that are labeled with further details can be counted on the digits of one hand.

RE5T IIN PEACE

II MI55 HIIM

BIITTER MEDIICIINE

That’s depressing as fuck. It occurs to you that Mituna can calculate the trajectory of space time around a dream bubble but he _can’t see inside_. There has to be a way. Just think: you could find safer routes to travel, or entire dream worlds to hide from the Empire in. You could track down Aradia. Maybe MT could even visit Karkat’s long lost Ancestor, the favorite rebel he talks about so wistfully, and he won’t even have to die first.

You crack your knuckles, stretching your hands out in front of you. Your eyes glow brighter as you actively draw on your Vision Twofold. This will be your most epic coding project yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mituna is resilient. He made it to this age with laugh lines on his face.


	29. Chapter 29

Night blurs into day through a vivid pink sunrise. Afterward, the diffuse grey light that filters in through the cloudy sky is just harsh enough to make you squint and pull your sun cloak more tightly over your eyes. You are left with afterimages and glare on your retinas. It’s uncomfortable but it isn’t nearly bad enough to blind you. Unfortunately it doesn’t make you feel any warmer either.

Your journey across the rocky landscape continues to progress very slowly with frequent breaks to warm up and rest. You don’t want to waste much more time soaking in the hot springs and they’re starting to get too hot anyway, so instead you periodically lay down as close as you can get and bask on the steaming rocks like a pair of lizards.

Aside from the general increase in brightness around you, the scenery around you looks much the same to your eyes as it did a couple of hours ago. However, your low frequency electromagnetic senses paint a different picture. “Hey Karkat, there are, I’m pretty sure, some caves under our feet, or maybe one large cave. I can’t exactly tell how they’re connected. Can you feel it?”

Oh, right. A small copper flush spreads across your cheeks as Karkat scowls at your horns with unabashed envy. “Fuck you and your huge rack. All I feel are the hot springs and the-“ He screws up his face in such intense concentration you’d think he just swallowed a lemon. “-Wait hold on, there’s water draining down into- I can’t feel the bottom.” His eyebrows shoot up. “Holy shit Tavros, is it _warm_ in there?”

“It feels cold, mostly, but not uniformly? Maybe not as cold as the air up here? I’m picking up infrared hot spots which are, I think, hotter than the surface springs.”

“Close enough. Let’s find a way to get in there without having to squeeze ourselves into a boiling waterfall.”

When you close your eyes and concentrate, you can just make out the wooly beast herd in the distance, milling about aimlessly in front of a very large cave entrance. “We uh, don’t have to. The wooly beasts already did.” Karkat leaps up from the rock he was sprawled out on with the hungriest, most ferocious glint in his eyes. You are about to doggedly limp after him on sore legs until he remembers that you can’t keep up. He backs up a few paces and lets you lean against his shoulder without complaining. You can’t decide if it’s more or less awkward once you start getting used to the strong, solid warmth of him as you walk.

Twenty minutes later you’ve caught up with the herd. It’s obvious why they’ve stopped here, you note as you spy on them from an outcropping. The cave mouth yawns deep into the ground with vast clouds of warm mist pouring out from the top. It condenses into tiny puddles of pure water on the surrounding rocks, which the wooly beasts bend their heads down to drink. Most of the ground is surprisingly green near the mouth of the cave. In contrast to the bright colonies of bacteria you passed along the way here, many of the rocks are covered in moss and lichen. The herd eats its fill and lies down in the soft vegetation to sleep.

You are famished, and Karkat is right without even having to say anything. The solution is right in front of your face if only you can find the courage to go through with killing your prey. There are so many ways you could do it. You could pick up one of the smallest beasts, fly up and drop it to the ground. You could dive bomb a wooly beast and savagely gore it with your sharp horns. Or…The precipice at the edge of the cave mouth is calling out to you in a sickening siren song. In your horns you can feel the sheer drop that leads to a heap of jagged rocks at the bottom. It would be so easy. Vriska’s voice comes back to taunt you. _Fly pupa, fly._

You can’t do it. You don’t think you could even bear to listen to Karkat trying to shove a beast into the cavern if you turned away, shut your eyes and tried to ignore the signals from your horns. How is he going to pull this off though? The only weapons Karkat has to work with are his claws, his surroundings and sheer determination.

Karkat picks up a large, flat, jagged stone in his left hand and flexes arm up and down with it, testing the weight. He rests his right hand gently on your shoulder. His serious, intent gaze could bore holes into your skull. “Don’t you fucking quit on me now Tavros, I need your help.”

You look away. “I know,” you reply in a voice barely louder than a whisper. “Please… try to make it, uh… quick and painless.”

“I’ll try.”

You single out the smallest beast, hold it perfectly still and shoo the rest of the herd away.

You watch through the wooly beast’s baleful eyes as Karkat slowly approaches with the rock held high over his head in both hands.

Karkat brings the rock smashing down onto its skull with all of the strength in the tight muscles of his arms, shoulders and back, and the bright, blinding bloom of pain the beast feels behind its eyes becomes your own. Lowing with anguish the beast shudders once and goes still. Your whole world goes black.


	30. Chapter 30

Did you kill it or is it just stunned? You crouch down to examine the wooly beast and immediately feel stupid. How are you supposed to know if this alien life form even has a blood pusher, let alone a pulse that you can hope to find somewhere in all that hair? It has clear blood, or at least you _think_ that’s what’s causing the fur to clump up into sticky mats where you struck it. You have to brush a lot of tangles aside to make sense of what you’re looking at. It’s hard to even find where the beast’s head ends and its body begins. 

The head is pretty mangled, and you can’t help imagining how much cleaner and easier this would have been if you had even one of your goddamned sickles handy. There are four large, dazed eyes and a skull cracked and splintered in several places. You’re pretty sure that doesn’t _look_ survivable. Lower down at what would be nearly floor level if the beast were standing, there is a pair of rock hard, completely flat jaws, suitable for grazing. You don’t find any nostrils. When you move further back along the animal to feel for breath, you realize it is still exhaling warm breaths through thousands of pores in its skin. So it’s still alive then.

With a sigh you set about the task of finishing it off with the sharpest edge you can find on your stupid piece of rock. It takes a few minutes and a whole lot of exertion, and you haven’t even begun to try to butcher the fucking thing. You’re hesitant to even try asking for Tavros’s help with that. He’d better at least help you carry the carcass down into the cave before it freezes and gets even more unmanageable. Sure it was the runt of the herd, but the damn thing easily outweighs you. “Hey Tavros, come help me with this.”

“…Tavros?” Oh _shit_ , you haven’t heard a peep from him in the last five or ten minutes. You try to fight back a wave of panic and fail utterly as soon as you see Tavros sprawling limply behind the rock ledge where you left him. _Oh god oh fuck oh god oh fuck this is definitely somehow my fault please don’t be dead okay he’s still breathing what do I do?_

You try to focus and weigh your options. Tavros is cold and laying there certainly isn’t going to do him any favors. Should you try to carry him down into the cave mouth? It’s only a steep drop on one side; you think you can manage the slope at the opposite end but the footing looks slippery and uneven. You don’t know how far down the cave entrance goes and if there will be enough light left to see by at the bottom. Also, Tavros is heavy and unwieldy. Conclusion: this is a bad idea and you’re probably both going to end up injured or worse.

Instead you hoist him up into your arms with a string of strained curses and carry him to the edge of the nearest hot spring. Minding the wings beneath his sun cloak, you set him down on the warm rock with excessive care as if he is made of glass. You lie down nearby and keep a concerned eye on him while you warm up and catch your breath. Tavros begins to stir, squeezing his eyes tightly shut and clutching at his head with one hand. You’re by his side flipping your shit in an instant.

“Tavros are you alright? What the fuck just happened? Did you hit your head when you fell?”

Tavros makes a small unhappy noise. “No, I didn’t fall, it’s, I should have probably stopped communing with the beast before you hit me, uh, I mean it.”

Your eyes go huge and your voice goes half choked with mortification. “Oh my god you _felt me hit you?_ I am the worst excuse for a friend ever to leave a stain on the ass end of the universe. I never should have asked you to-”

“Karkat! I’m mostly okay now, really!” Tavros cuts you off before you can thoroughly embarrass yourself. Thank fuck. “My head just feels weird now, like I’m remembering it hurting a lot but it didn’t actually happen?”

A thin layer of gruffness returns to badly paper over your fragile emotional state. “That sounds really fucking convincing and I’m really fucking convinced.”

“I think, maybe, you need a reminder of the same thing you said before about how we did this to survive. I’m really super hungry, so thank you, for being more ruthless than me.”

Wow that compliment was so undeserved it burns all the way to the tips of your ears. You return to the task of hacking your prey into pieces with far more haste than is strictly necessary.

You let Tavros settle down for a nap while you work on carving up the wooly beast into pieces that will be easier to carry. Skinning and slicing open the wooly beast is the most difficult part; your work gets substantially easier once you break through the porous exoskeleton underneath the long brown wool. The tough cartilaginous husk is followed by a layer of muscle to hydraulically work six stubby limbs and the grinding jaws. Underneath the layer of muscle is a round inner sphere of clear, fatty gelatinous material padding a front and back blood pusher, a long, complex digestive system, and a series of breathing tubes. By the time you’re halfway through you’re thoroughly exhausted but in a good way. It soothes your nerves to be useful to someone for once in your cursed life.

You know he’s as hungry as you are but it still surprises you when Tavros wakes up and bravely comes over to join you. You hack off two roughly equal meal sized portions of raw meat and gelatin- still warm from the beast’s dissipating body heat- and pass him one. It looks distinctly unappetizing, but you’re a troll damn it. Your noble race has evolved to conquer the universe and you’re not about to let a chunk of dubious fauna get in your way.

Exchanging a look, you scrunch up your noses and take a bite at the same time. It’s… not bad actually. It tastes bland, but it melts in your mouth and settles pleasantly in your digestive sac. There is plenty to go around and it will be easy to store in the cold. You probably won’t have to kill again for another two weeks.

“So, how do you like it?”

“Needs salt. You?”

“It would taste better fried, probably.”

“Everything tastes better fried. We can try it next time if we find a hot enough rock.”

“That sounds like maybe it could be doable.”

Tonight’s dinner is seasoned with guilt and served with a side of hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, I'm having SO MANY problems trying to write chapter 33. (It's the dialogue.) Let's hope I can get the words down before my buffer runs out.


	31. Chapter 31

The escape pod was only designed to land once. It heats up and vibrates with friction upon reentering the atmosphere, then when it hits the altitude set point it feels like you’re getting jerked upward by the parachute launch even though you know you’re still falling fast. You cushion your landing with psionics but the cheap outer layers are still burned and damaged. It’s time to ditch this piece of shit and trade up for something better. You need to hide the dinged up escape pod somewhere safe until you can go back and salvage your server from it.

Sollux opens up the entry hatch, squinting against the bright white natural moonlight of Swindler’s Mark. You can tell he’s dying to race off into the sky and burn off some pent up energy, but he hold himself back, cautious and suspicious. Instead, he lets your server bees loose to try their luck at finding some wildflowers before stepping out to survey his surroundings.

It’s not much to look at. You’ve landed on barren scrubland, a nearly bald moonscape of dry, cracked mud peppered with rocks, a few leafless, thorny shrubs and the occasional patch of dry grass. There is a shanty town of ramshackle hives huddled together on the horizon. You’re close enough to it that some wind strewn scraps of garbage have managed to roll out to here.

Swindler’s Mark is crawling with thieves and beggars, cheats and liars, gamblers, gamblignants, escaped alien slaves, intergalactic traders, bounty hunters, debtors and drug lords, draft dodgers and deserters, trolls who have barely escaped culling, brothels, taverns full of cheap sugary drinks and worse. Here on the wild frontier of the Empire that there are planets full of criminals like this everywhere. Fish Face often uses criminals as cannon fodder to colonize new planets and doesn’t come back to stake a bigger claim on it for decades, if ever, unless they become an unusually large nuisance. If there’s anywhere there’s a remote chance of people not sparing you a second glance, it’s a place just like this.

“You know why you kids got caught, Sollux? It’s because you tried to hide in the goddamned Alternian desert. That only worked _once_ , and it was because she didn’t already know that Kankri existed. It’s better to lose yourself in a big crowd where you’re harder to pick out.”

He gives you a pointed look. “You’d better leave the helmet behind then, MT.”

“God damn it, I know.” Having to fly blind again puts you on edge but Sollux is right. Standing out as a pair of penniless, tattered, extremely obvious ex-Helmsmen is already risky enough without making a bright Tyrian fashion statement, complete with the Piexes symbol right between your eyes. Sighing, you lift the helmet off your head and hand it to him. “Could you put this away and bury the escape pod for me?”

“Sure.”

While he’s doing that, you contemplate your growing five finger discount shopping list.

You’re going to need:  
1\. A proper space ship.  
2\. An anti mind scourge device, because you’re almost certain there will be an ambush waiting for you somewhere on the way to Cold as Globes V  
3\. Winter clothing for yourself, Sollux, and Sollux’s friends  
4\. More food supplies  
5\. A pair of sickles, and  
6\. Either a lance or dagger lance, so your imminent guests will be able to defend themselves.

It would be nice to have:  
1\. Functional recuperacoons with fresh sopor slime  
2\. Flight suits that don’t make you look like you just lost a fight with a cheese grater.  
3\. A new pair of bifurcated shades for Sollux (unlikely)  
4\. Bifurcated fucking bionic implants to replace your useless goddamned eyes (about as likely as the Empress deciding to resign tomorrow)  
5\. Or at least computerized glasses or something. 

How are you going to pull this off? You honestly never made it to this level of detail with your escape plans, because you never dreamed they would actually _work_. The saddest part is that you could legitimately afford _everything_ on your wish list and then some on a piss poor lowblood hourly wage if you were actually _paid_ for all your sweeps of service.

When Sollux is nearly finished you can feel the electric currents as he scatters the extra dirt to make the burial less obvious. “What’s got you looking so pissed all of a sudden?”

“The fact that we even _need_ to keep stealing shit. Bitch owes me so much in back wages I could bankrupt her.”

“Maybe we don’t.” He leaves a little channel for the bees to access their hive. You’ve got to hand it to him, kid really does know how to take care of a server.

“Got any better ideas?”

“Sell the escape pod on the black market?”

“That won’t fetch enough for a new space ship.”

“It’s a start. We could buy some supplies.”

“Hmm, yeah.”

He continues. “We could ask for passage on somebody else’s ship and convince them to make a detour? With us on board they’ll get wherever they’re going ahead of schedule.”

“That’s as good as stealing it, because I refuse to _ever_ set foot on a starship again without freeing their Helmsman. It wouldn’t be right.”

“What if we trade the escape pod for supplies then hit up the nearest starport and free _all_ of the Helmsmen?”

“For the love of fuck Sollux, there are only two of us.”

“Not for long.”

And with that, Sollux leads you overconfidently in the direction of the slums. The unworldly is literally leading the blind and you feel like such a wriggler as you drift along after him holding onto his hand so you don’t get lost in the throng of foreign voices. Everything smells unfamiliar and you can only make out the vague shapes of buildings and people around you with your horns.

You’re going to need:  
1\. A customer sketchy enough to take the escape pod off your hands without asking any questions.  
2\. A husktop case in any other color than fuchsia.  
3\. A free wifi connection.

And no matter how many times Sollux tries to convince you otherwise:

4\. A subjuggulator free miracle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 33 is still coalescing at a rate of about two sentences per day and I might still go back and decide to edit Chapter 32.
> 
> Have my Sollux playlist while you wait!
> 
> [ Danger – 19H11](http://www.thesixtyone.com/s/3BC7Jxz7vBm/) or if that link doesn’t work, [try this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsjXP7jWK0k)  
> [DS1 – I DNT KNW ](https://soundcloud.com/terrorhythm/ds1-i-dnt-knw)  
> [Paper Sailboat – Dead Battery](http://www.thesixtyone.com/s/8G1MmSandWS/) or if that link doesn’t work, [try this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_mfU2pFPK4)  
> [DDR – Xenon](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDVkDVcrWy0)  
> [Yoann Feynmann x Monomotion – Danger Preview](https://soundcloud.com/fakemusicrec/yoann-feynman-x-monomotion-danger-preview)  
> [Kfox – Cruisin’ in my UFO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dW9XR9ZF_Y)
> 
> It must be a good Sollux playlist considering that I ~~couldn't make up my mind~~ was of two minds about pretty much every song I wanted to include in it and what order I wanted to put it in.
> 
> (Please somebody send me a link to Sollux's shades emote. xD)


	32. Chapter 32

MT has landed you right near a predominantly alien neighborhood. That was probably a good idea, considering that trolls are far more likely than aliens to guess more about you from a glance, although it does leave you trying very hard not to stare and gape like a dumbass tourist. 

The first aliens you notice are mostly troll shaped, hornless, round headed, stiff bodied beings ranging in height from your chest to your knees. You can see the segments in their hard exoskeletons in the joints of their thin limbs. Their bodies are draped in colorful robes or tattered grey rags with a hood that covers everything on their faces except for the eyes. These are Carapacians, one of the most common alien species across the Alternian Empire. Glancing at an exchange between two black shelled traders, you manage to catch a scant few words that stuck in your head from the Derseite Mituna tried to teach you. They are absolutely silent, blinking at each other in a language reminiscent of binary code and gesticulating expressively with their whole bodies.

Then there are the Leprichauns dressed sharply in suits; you could almost mistake them for another subspecies of Carapacian if it weren’t for the green skin and the much wider variety of shapes of their heads and bodies. You only recognize them at all because Mituna gave you a headache by trying to explain how hilarious their convoluted quadrants are. Once your eyes skim past the Leprichauns you’ve reached the limits of your knowledge and everything else is namelessly foreign to you.

Take, for instance, those knee high chittering beings with disproportionately large heads, stick thin legs, white eyes like angled thin slits, sharp teeth and claws, and bodies like a cross between a cartoon version of a troll and any sort of lusus creature imaginable. They come in every color on the hemospectrum and some that aren’t. Each one looks so widely different from the others that they are barely recognizable as the same species. Some have horns, others have wings, still others have two heads.

Also note the terrifying, strong jawed lizard like beings with heads that reach up to half your height and bodies twice as long as you are tall; the hulking square bodied beings with protruding teeth that vaguely remind you of your Bicyclops; the glowing three storey tall worms with spherical white heads that part the crowds as they pass through the narrow street. The overall effect is overwhelming enough to make you feel like you’re tripping globes on sopor slime.

You would almost fail to notice the local trolls here at all if it wasn’t so obvious how much they notice you. They remind you a bit of your former hivecluster neighbors the way they hurriedly push past you without offering so much as a greeting, with an added dose of anxious avoidance as if your biowire scars were a communicable disease. You get a few double takes. The pun is amusing; the implications are anything but. You move along and mind your own damned business without saying a word.

You leave a residential area and enter a marketplace full of tall, narrow shops all smashed in next to each other along a cobblestone street, punctuated by dark alleyways with rickety staircases leading up to the second and third floors. Between the store fronts, the vendor’s stalls rudely setting up shop right in front of them, and all the people who have stopped to shop or just chat there’s hardly enough room for foot traffic to pass through in two directions. It’s such a terrible, tempting idea to fly over all their heads. You resist.

The electric grid here seems to be patchy at best. You are surrounded by a mishmash of lighting sources ranging from bioluminescent pupae to sadly flickering bulbs made of glass to oil lanterns. You wonder if that bodes well or badly for you. Maybe you could offer to charge up someone’s batteries in exchange for one of the items on your list. 

Especially someone who uses a lot of electronics. Say… that dodgy looking roof level shop display with the odd collection of robots staring right at you through the window. You can’t even count how many different types of battered, tarnished metal they’ve been patched and bolted together from. You swear to god part of that knee high hopbeast is made from a sliver of purple _fabric_ and still follows you with its head like it’s alive. You duck into the alleyway, stare up at ten flights of stairs with no elevator, and yeah, fuck that, there’s no way you’re going to climb all those no matter how eager you were to burn off some energy before. 

“Hey MT, we’re going to fly up a bunch of stairs because I saw a robot shop up there,” you tell him in a voice that no one else will hear over the multilingual haggling in the street. He nods at you, and you don’t like how quiet and nervous he is like this. You desperately hope nobody is paying attention as you finally cave in and cheat. Not like you walking up a bunch of stairs was going to make MT floating up them after you any less conspicuous anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *AU intensifies*


	33. Chapter 33

**Years in the Past, But Not Many**

You are thirteen- no you did not mean six sweeps even though it’s technically true; you refuse to conform to the time measurement that clashes so jarringly with the orbit of your home planet- and the party is over if there ever was one in the first place. The final video schoolfeed ends here, leaving your hive ominously devoid of sound. You have just been informed that your hive on its struts over shallow ocean- prime real estate- will be expropriated. Your lusus will be taken from you and reassigned to a new human toddler.

Poor sweet innocent Maplehoof, the only mother you’ve ever known. You’re not ready to break the news to her yet.

You are fluent and literate in the official language of the Empire, so you will be able to understand your orders. You have been taught enough basic math that you can’t be expected to cheat a Seadweller by mistake. If a lowblood allows herself to be fooled- well that’s her problem. You have been taught in the use of modern troll technology and proven yourself exceedingly adept at it. You have been taught to strife, not enough to beat a troll of course (hah, that’s what _they_ think), but enough that you are not too pathetic to survive in a wilderness full of wandering lusii. In short, you are deemed sufficiently educated for assignment as a slave to the Empire and the Imperial Drones are coming for you.

Whether or not they’ll be able to catch you is an entirely different question. The Empire doesn’t know about all the things you’ve learned that go above and beyond your schoolfeeding. They don’t know yet that a notoriously badass rebel has been sending you his own illegal videos, and if they ever catch him it will already be too late. The Trolls would call him your Ancestor. You call him your Bro.

You mainly speak to your Bro in English. He also managed to teach you some very basic Spanish, a few phrases in Japanese (mostly just for laughing at anime references), and where to look for more material to keep teaching yourself. Neither of these languages strains your throat as much as trying to pronounce a troll buzz. He taught you how to handle money and run a business. He taught you about history and culture and music and tried to help you struggle through higher mathematical concepts and programming until you became better at it than he was. He passed on his sense of humor to you. He taught you how you should strive to treat others and try not to be so hard on yourself, even if you sometimes fuck it up. He taught you facts and myths about the birds and the bees in a matter of fact way which you were both too cool to get embarrassed about. He taught you about holidays and birthday presents and celebrating a life that’s too goddamned fleeting. In short, he taught you how to be human.

Whenever he can risk it, he pilots a holographic projection of himself into teaching you more advanced strife techniques. Afterward you shoot the shit and catch up for a while. You’ve just finished building a robot prototype in his likeness. Next time he’ll be able to pilot the robot instead of a shitty green grid of light with aviators on. You’ve started on an AI program to mimic his training style when he isn’t available. It’s been months since you last heard from him. You can’t afford to worry about him now. You need to worry about yourself.

As you pack up everything that can be carried between you, your mermaid horse lusus, your robots and your jet propelled Unreal Air skateboard, you begin to realize that there really isn’t a whole lot of it you could do without. In fact the most important, irreplaceable things you can bring with you are your knowledge and skills. This kernel of wisdom will serve you well many times throughout your life.

***

You thought your Bro taught you to be untraceable. In reality it takes a lot more practice than that. As promised, your lusus was confiscated. So long Maplehoof, and thanks for all the fish.

You had to activate the self destruct sequence on Brobot before they could get a close enough look at him to realize he wasn’t just a taller Dirkbot. You had to quickly smash up your laptop and throw it in the ocean. The rest of your robots have been destroyed, and you need to start over collecting scraps. You have a lot of work in front of you, but you’re not discouraged.

It soon turns out that getting caught isn’t actually all that bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter but the ideas are flowing again. My No Sgrub Alternia Controlled Earth is like an AU unto itself.


	34. Chapter 34

You are fifteen. For the past two years you have been working on a sizable farm on a tiny, remote Pacific island in the tropics. You grow all the starches, fruits and vegetables you need for yourselves, and the rest either ends up as expensive troll booze or gets eaten by rampaging pests. You suppose it’s better for everyone’s health that you aren’t allowed to use pesticides, considering that all the bugs are the real harvest as far as the trolls are concerned. You have to fend off huge invasive troll introduced invertebrates that range from the size of your head to twice your size. At least they only eat your crops. There are times when the much larger wild lusii try to eat _you_.

At least you have help with the versatile garden variety native pests. Evidently potato beetles and their larvae are the equivalent of potato chips to the whiny shitwagon of a Threshecutioner who’s supposed to be in charge of you. That lazy asshole can never stop at just one. You’ve also seen him eating ants, grasshoppers, cockroaches, and slugs, and that was around the time you lost your appetite and stopped paying attention to his diet.

Shitwagon is tolerable as far as trolls go. He annoys the hell out of you but at least he isn’t murderous or sadistic. He talks down to you and gives you orders on what to plant and he breathes down your neck to make sure the work is getting done every day, but he doesn’t actually know anything about Earth crops so he leaves all the details to you. Draped from head to toe in a dark sun cloak and wearing gloves and sunglasses, he complains about his job as he sits around watching you tilling and planting and weeding and harvesting from the sidelines. Sometimes he plays shitty cell phone games. Sometimes he nods off and acts exceptionally bossy to make up for it as soon as he wakes up.

He has a few favorite gripes that you hear from him over and over again:  
1\. He is bored. His job involves too much threshing and not enough executions. He is convinced that the reason he is stuck babysitting a gaggle of mutant blooded aliens is the fact that he’s a rust blood.  
2\. He has to stay up all day and try to sleep at night.  
3\. The weather. He hates the sun and the heat and the humidity and the daily torrential downpours of rain.

Then again, there are times when Shitwagon is actually fun to have around. He comes in handy when you need a little help fighting off the local megafauna. Needling him about his many insecurities, you like to goad him into sparring with you in the morning when both your reflexes are at their sharpest. Technically you aren’t supposed to be allowed to spar with him. You’re definitely not supposed to be allowed to give him an epic beatdown every time. He tells you that he let you win, but deep down you’re sure the fact that he’s a third rate fighter is the real reason why he ended up with this job instead of putting down insurgencies or expanding the Empire elsewhere. Secretly, he doesn’t actually give a shit about the Empire. The best thing about him is how he often lets you get away with a whole lot of illegal shenanigans out of sheer laziness. A dead end day shift job will do that to a troll.

You like your coworkers.

There’s Jade Harley, the first fellow human you’ve ever met in person. Her dark Polynesian skin, upturned button nose and long black hair contrast sharply with your features. This island has always been her home since the day she was born. She gets to stay here and keep her dog lusus named Bec and her hive, which would make you really jealous if you were talking about anyone else. Her weapon of choice is a hunting rifle that she can aim with deadly accuracy. She actually likes growing crops to the point where she has been working on this farm voluntarily and growing her own personal garden in her hive since long before she grew up to the Empire’s legal enslavement age.

The fact that farming is legally her exclusive job, however, is a tragedy. She is capable of so much more. Her hive has an entire reference library dedicated to science, specializing in the subjects of physics, botany and electrical engineering. She is a robot aficionado like you, and has built one that she can control in her dreams and play the guitar. The robot has been deemed harmless enough to keep, a fact that has inspired many of your latest side projects. Jade is also keenly interested in space and eagerly wakes up in the middle of the night to peer through the massive glass eye of her observatory tower whenever the sky is clear. One day she wants to navigate through the stars and bring a small garden with her.

Then there’s WV, a Derse Carapacian dressed in a pointy-hooded, checkered purple tabard with red buttons down the front. He may have been working on this farm for centuries. He doesn’t care for trolls very much, and he is really excited about his job. Although it isn’t his native language, he speaks to you by blinking in English Morse Code. It took you a good few months to get used to that. You understand almost nothing about him except for the fact that he just really fucking loves vegetables (pumpkins are his favorite) and he goes by a whole lot of different names, all with the same initials. His handle seems to depend on what he happens to be doing at the time. When he’s out farming on a typical day he refers to himself as the Warweary Villein. Sometimes for fun you call him the Weed Vanquisher, and he seems to like it. When he’s busy getting complained at by Shitwagon he refers to himself as the Weaponless Varlet. His favorite job is harvesting and canning vegetables, and when he’s doing this he calls himself Warehousing Victuals. Jade jokingly calls him What Vegetables at the kitchen table. Food has a scary way of disappearing in the blink of an eye around him.

Your third coworker is MP, a Prospit Carapacian in a striped pink hood and a colorful dress. She fusses over all of you like a second lusus, mending your clothes and sewing new ones when you grow out of them, taking care of you when you’re sick or injured, and making sure you put on enough sunscreen. You usually call her Matronly Peasant, although she also answers to Meal Preparer when she’s in the kitchen or Medical Prentice if she is patching somebody up. When she comes out to help you in the garden or on the farm, she is the Magnanimous Planter. She is surprisingly handy and the first person you go to when something needs fixing around the communal hive. When there are tools in her hands she goes by Ms. Paint. Her favorite color is green.

The most recent arrival to the farm is Rose Lalonde. She turned thirteen and was brought here only a month ago; she is two years younger than you and three days younger than Jade. Her upbringing was a lot like yours, housed in another isolated hive in the middle of the ocean. Her lusus was a tentacled monstrosity with the head of a three eyed cat, affectionately known as Vodka Mutini. With her light, freckled skin, pale blond hair and round face she looks a lot like you. She knows about your Bro, and supposedly she’s a first cousin to both of you. She likes books, knitting and embroidery. She is secretly terrifying, because her knitting needles are concealed plasma ray guns that the nobody ever caught on to when she was taken from her hive. So far she’s the only person you know who employs more sarcasm than you do. She thrives on passive-aggressive sass and a fancy vocabulary.

Honestly you haven’t been doing much actual work lately. You have a whole lot of free time on your hands ever since Shitwagon let you get away with building a Farmbot to take over most of the heavy duty farming for you, which successfully defeats the purpose of your entire enslavement. You are counting on the apathetic troll’s inattention to be able to rebuild Brobot and various other next generation robots with upgraded weapons. Next time the drones come after you, you intend to win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Shitwagon. I don't know what I'm going to call him yet, or even if he has a role in the rest of the story, but I'm inordinately attached to this asshole now.


	35. Chapter 35

Bro is dead. It’s all over the news feeds. He took hundreds of drones and two subjuggulators down with him, but in the end he succumbed to blood loss before he could escape to safety. For the next week you delude yourself into believing it’s all propaganda. The deafening silence of your chat client and the lifeless, artificial, purely mechanical movements of Brobot prove otherwise. You refuse to listen to Jade’s voice of reason, you refuse to discuss your feelings with Rose, and you refuse to accept the Matronly Peasant’s words of comfort. You can’t stand the sympathy in the Warweary Villein’s eyes as he passes a side dish across the table to you, so much so that you slink off and avoid eating meals at the same time as anyone else or skip them entirely. You are seventeen and your life no longer has meaning.

You finally snap after bottling up your emotions for days. When you do, the very first person you take them out on is the nearest troll. You will tear yourself apart for it later because you know he doesn’t really deserve it, but right now he is a convenient scapegoat for all your problems. By the time your friends manage to physically restrain you you’ve already pummeled Shitwagon senseless with the flat of your sword.

***

Your name is Rashyr Waggon and your body is one giant bruise. You are propped up on a pile of pillows, draped in some kind of fabric covering, and lying on a soft rectangular piece of furniture. It most definitely is not your recuperacoon, although you seem to have been asleep here for a while. Your shredded, bloodied uniform is draped across a chair at the foot of the bed on top of your sun cloak, which is in a similar state of disrepair. When you peer underneath your fabric covering you can see that you are wrapped in an excessive quantity of white bandages, a hallmark of the Medical Prentice’s enthusiastic handiwork. Blinking blearily at your surroundings, you make out a human style respiteblock with white painted walls and curtains drawn over vague grey light streaming in from outside. Shit, what time is it? Did you miss your evening status report to the Milky Way Sector Thresh Base?

Oh fuck, what are you even going to say in your status report? ‘Sorry Commander, I allowed a rampaging adolescent human to beat the shit out of me, it won’t happen again.’ Even a lie about rampaging sea goats wouldn’t make this look any better. Best case: as soon as she finds about this she is going to reassign you somewhere you’ll have _legitimate_ job conditions to gripe about, except if you actually _do_ complain they might decide to shut you up permanently by cutting out your tongue. Only now after being schoolfed a heavy dose of reality- now that it’s too late- do you realize that your job here on Earth is actually pretty cushy and you have a lot to lose. You’ve been on a long leash without anything terribly difficult or dangerous to deal with, the slaves actually manage their work _better_ if you don’t tell them what to do, and the tiny wild beetles are delicious. Worst case: you are culled for incompetence, so is the Dirk human for becoming too dangerous, and possibly so are the other slaves to prevent them from getting any ideas. You don’t want that for yourself, and you’ve grown so accustomed to spending time with the slaves here that you don’t want that to happen to them either. You don’t know what to do now.

The female humans seem to think you should have acted more sympathetic to the Dirk human after losing his Ancestor, and you don’t understand why. Do humans expect everyone to be their moirails or something? Gross. Anyway, the Dirk human is lucky he even got to speak with his Ancestor while he was alive; like most lowblood trolls you’re not even sure if you ever had one. The only big deal you see here is that his Ancestor was a major threat to the Empire if he really was strong enough to kill two subjuggulators. If anything you’re relived that there’s one less dangerous criminal on the loose. On the day the news broke you mostly didn’t care; the capture and culling happened far enough away that you really didn’t feel like it had any effect on you.

Until, that is, the Dirk human suddenly went highblood rage on you, and now your whole life is in jeopardy. You didn’t think it was possible for a human (they don’t even _have_ a hemospectrum!), but here you are with the injuries to prove it. You are not angry about the fight you lost. In fact, you are not even annoyed by the long running stupid nickname he gave you anymore. As he launched himself at you with such burning, impersonal anger and tears streaking down his face, all you could think about is how you don’t really hate him- platonically or otherwise- and you don’t think he really hates you that much, and how in that moment you almost did pity him a little. He beat the shit out of you but he didn’t _mean_ it; it just so happened he just didn’t have a moirail to calm him when he really needed one. The Dirk human always seemed like someone who needs a moirail, but even if you did try to nurture pity for him there’s no way you would ever be able to understand enough about humans- especially him- for that moirail to be you.

You blink, and where there was only dark empty space before suddenly the Dirk human is slouching mock casually in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. He is pointedly staring at a space to the right of your head. It’s already too late to pretend to be asleep. You hold your breath.

After a long, awkward pause, he shifts his weight to the other foot and runs a hand through his gelled hair. He lets out a long sigh that rings loud against the prevailing silence in the respiteblock. “…Sorry, dude.” He immediately turns to leave.

“Wait! …Dirk.” You had to stop yourself for about three seconds to remember not to bracket his name with ‘the’ and ‘human’ for once. You need to stop thinking of him as a slave to the Empire, and you’re not in charge of him anymore. You’re fellow cullbait now. You are immensely relieved when Dirk pauses halfway through the doorway and narrows his eyes suspiciously at you. “You know we’re probably all fucked as soon as I report to my Thresh squad commander right? Sooner if I’ve missed my scheduled check in already. I hope for your sake that you have a backup plan for when the drones arrive.”

“Really.” From behind his pointed shades, you can feel Dirk staring at you as if he is weighing your words very, very carefully. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

You tentatively reach a decision. You swallow. Your mouth feels dry. “Can I- Can I help?”

“Let me make this clear, Shitwagon. I haven’t decided yet, but when I do you’ll have to follow _our_ rules. Do you understand?”

“Yes, master,” you answer very quietly. You bow your head and your face heats up all the way to the tips of your hooked horns in shame.

“Ugh, no. Rule number one: _all_ of the master and slave bullshit has to go.”

You furrow your eyebrows at him and blink incredulously. It’s going to take a long time to wrap your head around exactly what you’re getting yourself into.

Later that night when Dirk and the other farm hands decide to let you join their attempt at escape, you realize that you’ve made an infinitely better choice than leaving your fate in the hands of the Empire. You’d much rather fight on the side with an impressive robotic arsenal than the side that is about to find out you’ve let the humans build one right under your nose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 222 kudos, how very fitting. I LOVE YOU ALL.


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for violence against drones? I don't think it's excessively graphic but here you go.
> 
> WHOA I broke 30k words.

If you squint you can just barely see them; the first drones have appeared over the horizon. They’ll be here any minute now. This is so exciting! You’re nervous, but you’ve been practicing for a long time. Jade thinks you’ll do just fine. You tell her you hope she’s right.

You are quite literally dressed to kill. Instead of your usual pastels, you are draped all the way to the floor in close fitting velvet, a twinkling green so dark it nearly looks black. Underneath you have on a pair of sensible flat shoes. Nobody can see how sparkly they are, but it’s enough that you know you’re wearing them. Fancy clothes help you set your nervousness aside and feel ready for anything. You step out of the persona of the soft-hearted nurse and try kicking ass and taking names on for size.

Your partners in crime decided to join your eveningwear party one after another, and it really means a lot to you. Jade is wearing a matching dress that you made for her in thanks for letting you borrow one of her rifles and teaching you how to use it. Rose calls your dresses with a violet gown and raises you a pair of matching heels. For WV you’ve tailored a coat and tails and a top hat that suit him very nicely. The effect may be _slightly_ tarnished by the way he hops from one foot to the other in them, brandishing a pitchfork in his two handed grip, but whatever he loses in elegance he makes up for with enthusiasm. Even Dirk, who you’ve never seen in anything other than the sloppiest sleeveless shirts and shorts during all the time he’s been here, has been starched and ironed into a dashing suit and tie. He slouches against a tree with his katana resting over one shoulder, scanning the horizon through his shades. You don’t really mind that his posture is a lot harder to change than his attire. Your companions are so reassuring and _classy_. You love them all.

…And then there’s Ex-Threshecutioner Waggon, who is wearing bandages, the hastily repaired remains of his sun cloak, and an expression of slightly nauseous boot-quaking terror, not so much wielding as clinging onto his sickles for dear life. He looks very much like he should still be in bed. He is not reassuring at all, but he will have to do. You can only hope he will make it through this fight without sustaining any more serious injuries.

There is no more time to worry about him. Dirk’s not-so-harmless robots rocket out in formation to meet the drone squadron as it flies into firing range. The tall cloaked robot launches six missiles all at once and the short one with huge eyes riddles a drone with heavy duty carapace piercing bullets shot from its fingers. Three Dirk bots and Dirk on the latest version of his jet propelled skateboard assail the drones with swords in hand; a fourth Dirk bot joins the fray with bare fists (you never thought he was going to run out of swords, but all that metal had to come from _somewhere_ ). Soon Dirk and his attack bots are lost to your sight in a cloud of smoke and debris while the rest of the drones keep charging landward.

You close one eye, aim your crosshairs and fire. You watch with grim satisfaction as the drone that you shot through the wing-shoulder founders in flight and splashes down into the water. It and several others sink like rocks as you and Jade pick them off one by one, followed by charred bits and pieces from the drones Jade’s upgraded Dreambot and Rose sear clean lines through with their lasers.

Most of the forward momentum of the drone squadron finally stops as they make landfall. WV leads a horde of pitchfork waving farmbots into battle, blinking a silent war cry. You have to aim very carefully to stop the drones that break past WV’s line of defense from overwhelming Waggon as he tries to hold his own bringing up the rear. You keep a mental tally of Waggon’s general health by the snatches of his agitated snarling that you can hear between gunshots. Rose and the Dreambot rush around to the front to help WV, where hopefully they have a clearer shot than you do.

Adrenaline completely warps your sense of time. After minutes of intense concentration that feel like hours, one second in particular grinds to a complete halt. You catch a glimpse of Dirk being knocked off his skateboard into the bloodied ocean while his robotic clones keep fighting behind him. His shades go flying. His sword drops from his arm. His sword arm hangs at completely the wrong angle. _He can’t swim with a broken arm_ , especially while the drone he was fighting repeatedly swoops down after him.

You scramble between covering Jade and Waggon at the same time as Jade drops everything and dives into the surf after Dirk. It’s too hard to keep up, and now Waggon’s bandages are soaking through and he’s swaying on his feet looking faint and dizzy. A Dirkbot suddenly detonates, taking out a cluster of drones with it. The rest of the robots finally run out of targets for long enough to protect Jade while she hauls Dirk out of the shallows. You injure both of Waggon’s latest attackers and Rose finishes them off.

After a few short minutes the entirety of the drone squadron has been decimated. There is carnage everywhere, which you choose to ignore. You rush inside to wash your hands and pull on some gloves. You perform first aid on both of your patients right there on the beach, spreading out bed sheets in the shade on the grass above the sand line. It’s awful; they need a proper hospital with anesthetics, blood transfusions and strong painkillers, but you know if they somehow managed to cross the ocean to one right now they would only be culled on sight. You make do with all you’ve got: your nursing training, antiseptics, bandages, blankets, a bottle of vodka Rose technically isn’t supposed to have, and a glass of freshly pressed apple cider. Okay Dirk is underage too, but this is an emergency. You only let Dirk and Waggon get a little bit tipsy. They need to stay awake until you’re sure neither of them will go into shock.

Hours later you’re finally satisfied that they’re stabilized and on the path to recovery, it belatedly occurs to you that all of your fancy clothing is now ruined. You suppose being dressed to kill was a bad metaphor after all. Dirk is currently wearing a semi permanent grimace. Waggon now looks utterly exhausted but otherwise alert. “We need to leave this island, or preferably this planet as soon as possible. Does anyone have any ideas?”

Waggon lets out a very familiar long-suffering sigh. “…Yes, and I’m already regretting it. Fuck my life, I am never going to hear the end of this,” He grumbles to himself as he fumbles open his flip phone to punch in a number, very slowly and with great force.

“Who iiis iiit?” A tinny female voice sing-songs through the speaker.

Waggon crosses his free arm over his chest. “Cut the bullshit Shayel, I don’t have time-”

“Oh wait _I_ know who it is! It’s the only troll who calls me in the middle of the day and interrupts my beauty sleep!”

“ _Who you also have on speed dial._ ”

“What’s that? You’re muttering.”

“No I’m _serious_ Shay, hear me out.”

“Liar. You _always_ have time for my bullshit you chronic slacker.”

Waggon takes a deep breath and grits his teeth. “Shut your face gash and listen already. I swear I’ve just lost half my blood in the past two days and I’m lying on the beach trying not to pass out here. You were _right_ , okay? I’ve officially lost the bet. Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate’s life for me. Now will you _please_ get your ass over here before they send a second wave of drones.”

“Wow, how the hell did you manage to survive the first one noodlehands?”

“With difficulty, help and a whole pile of illegal robots. _That’s_ how badly I fucked up, are you happy now?”

“Immensely. I’ll be right over.”

There are a few beats of silence, then Waggon makes a face. “Typical. Bitch hung up on me without saying goodbye _again_. I swear I’m going to bleed all over her fancy game beast carpet as soon as she lets us aboard her stupid trash heap of a space ship.”

“Someone please kick my head until I black out so I don’t have to listen to Shitwagon complaining about his girl problems.”

“Fuck you platonically, Dirk. This is all your fault.”

Waggon seems almost happy. You decide that both he and Dirk have a very good prognosis for a speedy recovery.


	37. Chapter 37

Shitwagon’s hate girlfriend sure isn’t giving you a lift for charity. In fact she’s a real hardass (opposites attract?), and now you’re all working harder than you ever had to on the farm, even you with your busted arm in a sling. You send mental commands to your least damaged Dirkbot through your shades to help Jade make repairs and upgrades on the slapdash pirate ship and use it to make repairs on the other robots in your spare time. MP has stepped into the role of Meal Preparer with What Vegetables as her sous chef. Even with two of them together it isn’t an easy job. They have to work double time to cook separate meals for the troll pirate crew and your non-troll companions. At the end of her shift MP still takes the time to check how you’re healing no matter how exhausted she is. Rose is assigned to various odds and ends, from taking stock of the ship’s inventory to repairing clothing to entertaining off-shift crew with her sarcasm, psychoanalyses and slightly terrifying wizard fanfiction.

You can’t figure out whether Shitwagon pulled the short straw or this is standard fare for a kismesis relationship, but the Captain _really_ has him on a short leash. The instant he set foot on her ship she made him fork over a hefty chunk of his life savings in exchange for finding a nice illegal place to transfer his funds to before the Empire finds out exactly what just happened and they confiscate the entire sum. Then she put him on laundry and cleaning duty and threatened to give him something _real_ to complain about if she hears so much as a peep of protest out of him. Like exchanging that broom for a human style mop and bucket, for example. _That_ shut him up real quick and made him flush bright burgundy.

They’re discrete about it (thank god), but you’re 99.9% sure there’s also sex involved. The last time you caught sight of Shitwagon he was distractedly sweeping his way down the corridor with a completely glazed over expression on his face and some fresh fang marks on the underside of his jaw. As soon as he noticed you he immediately cut off his soft purring with an awkward cough into his fist and pretended to be in an immense hurry to go sweep out the nearest storage room. You keep a straight face even though you think it’s hilarious. The Medical Prentice strongly disapproves. You tell her to chill. Trolls heal fast.

The ship’s power and propulsion system consists of a handful of rust and copper-blooded semi-decent psionic members of the pirate crew who take shifts piloting and charging the batteries on a volunteer basis. They’ve collectively used up their juice bailing your asses out and accelerating the ship back to light speed and they need a couple days to sleep it off. The crew can’t do any raids in this condition, and even once they’re rested you and your friends are liable to get in the way. It takes several weeks to get to the nearest shitty safe haven for fugitives. Once there, the Captain sends all of you packing at the very first opportunity, Shitwagon included. He stares forlornly after the receding pirate ship, looking completely lost. “Bitch didn’t say goodbye this time either,” he sighs mostly to himself.

You’re not sure if you want to know, but you can’t stop yourself from asking. “Dude, did she just dump you?”

“She got bored of me. Too one-sided,” Shitwagon answers concisely as he deletes her contact from his phone. He seems a little down but not too broken up about it. Long distance must have been the only thing that kept them together before. “Can you imagine me as a pirate anyway?” With his pudgy couch potato body, clumsy swordsmanship and less than adventurous attitude? You’re feeling too charitable to answer that out loud. “…Me neither.” He runs a hand through his thin straight hair. “Shit I… have no idea what I’m going to do with myself now.”

“Buy a motorcycle. I hear that’s what humans do when they’re having a midlife crisis.”

“Fuck you, eighteen sweeps isn’t _that_ old for a rustblood.”

“Yeah keep telling yourself that. In the mean time you can stick around with us while we figure our shit out. Human rules still apply.”

Shitwagon shrugs and follows you into town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short transition chapter here. We're getting back to the Captors next.


	38. Chapter 38

**Present day (four years later)**

You pass the threshold of a creaky door with the most cheerful, out of place door chime you’ve ever heard. On the other side you’re faced with a single eyebrow raised over a pair of ridiculously pointy triangular sunglasses over a flat, expressionless mouth. The store owner is a soft, pink hornless troll like alien species you don’t recall seeing in any movies, newscasts or schoolfeeding videos. You can’t tell if his hair is naturally supposed to be such a pale yellow or he dyed it that way. He’s almost a full head shorter than you, built slim and flexible but definitely more muscular and graceful than you. His bare, tattooed arms are covered in nasty scars. Something in his casually tense posture hints at the potential for a hidden burst of speed. Between that and the fact that the hopbeast is the least human or troll shaped robot in the shop, you wonder if he had a hopbeast for a lusus.

The store owner stares at you like it’s a contest to see who will blink first. You totally lose because you can’t take the awkwardness for long, and your eyes end up darting around among the contents of the crowded little shop instead. There’s a small work bench in the back, littered with tools and half finished robot parts. There are peeling and faded posters of hoofbeasts all over the walls. Ugh. You try to mask your distaste as your eyes return to the store owner’s face. “Hey,” you start hesitantly. “We’d like to make a trade if you’d be interested.”

The store owner keeps staring as if you haven’t even said anything.

You shoot a helpless glance back at your Ancestor, whose sightless gaze is fixed in the middle distance somewhere. “A little help here MT? You’re the one who’s good with languages.”

“Can you describe the store owner for me?”

“About KK’s height, creepily similar to a troll but with no horns-”

“Human then.”

“Can you speak human?”

“Can you speak troll? For shame, Sollux. I thought I taught you better than that. Humans have thousands of languages.”

“Fuck you, some of us haven’t had an assload of free time and an avid interest in learning them all. How are we supposed to narrow it down?”

“Keep describing the store owner and I might be able to hazard a guess.”

“Looks male, pink skin, light yellow hair, pointiest shades I’ve ever seen. He’s relaxed in a vaguely threatening way and he’s just standing in front of me blocking the way like he half wants me to leave his shop and half wants me to just buy something already. He has one eyebrow raised and he hasn’t even moved his mouth since we got here.”

Eyebrows furrowing in concentration, Mituna translates your request into something you wouldn’t be able to pronounce if you tried. There are too many vowels, the clicks sound too soft, and you can’t hear a single growl, rasp or whistle anywhere.

There is a long, breathless pause.

The corner of the shop owner’s mouth quirks upward in a nearly imperceptible smirk. “A plus for effort, but I only actually know about ten words of Japanese,” he replies in strangely accented yet grammatically perfect Military Alternian. “Congratulations gramps. You’ve passed the test.”

“You’ve been messing with us this whole time!?”

“ _You’re_ borderline but I’ll let you slide.”

“Go jerk off to your tacky highblood art, you assbucket.”

“Babe, if you wanna diss my sweet innocent lusus and my choice of décor, the only bargaining chip I can offer you is a face full of sword.”

“Pffft. Sollux, you precious grub. I hate to interrupt your first hilarious attempt at interspecies hateflirting, but I think you’d better save it for later and let me do the talking.”

“Zing.” The store owner deadpans, his annoying miniscule smirk returning to his face.

There is basically no way to respond to that without looking like you really were trying to hateflirt with an alien you just met, when in fact the shop owner just happens to be an asshole who you’ve taken an immediate disliking to. “Smartass,” you grumble at Mituna, well aware that the same thing has often been said of you.

Your Ancestor nods sagely. “Maybe someday, if you work really hard- your ass can be as smart as mine.”

“I’ll stick to thinking with my cranial sponge, thank you very much.”

“You two are a laugh a minute,” the shop owner remarks as he casually slouches out of your way. He waves a hand in a vague gesture that encompasses various items in the shop, inviting you to take a closer look on his way to the back of the block. He returns to his work bench with a screwdriver in hand.

Mituna wiggles his eyebrows. “We’re also a light sweep in less than a sweep, if you catch my drift.”

“Escaped helmsmen? Welp. That explains the floating and the glowing and the Van de Graff hair.”

Your jaw drops. “Holy _shit_ MT, you can’t just-”

“Oh yes I can. We’ve fallen into the finest of bad company, Sollux!” Mituna looks absolutely delighted. “You’re Dirk Strider, right?”

“Hey now, you can’t go giving away all my secrets.” Dirk sounds like he doesn’t actually mind.

“I _knew_ it!”

Also his name tells you absolutely nothing. You wait for Mituna to elaborate.

“After a wrigglerhood spent hacking up Imperial Drones with his robots, this beautiful asshole followed in the footsteps of his Ancestor and killed two Subjuggulators. I prefer to avoid violence, but that was fucking badass. You know you’re in deep shit when I start rooting for you on my video feeds.”

“Hm,” you say, impressed in spite of yourself.

“Hm,” says Dirk, studying both of you with renewed intensity from behind his shades. He suddenly moves aside a curtain in the back corner of the shop and shouts down a spiral staircase. “Oi Jade, we’ve got company!”


	39. Chapter 39

An enthusiastic green-eyed, brown-skinned female human bounds up the stairs to greet you, closely followed by a massive barkbeast lusus that somehow manages not to trip her as it squeezes past her in the narrow space. The barkbeast is riddled with battle scars, including a few long-healed gashes where the fur never grew back, a torn ear, and a missing front leg doesn’t seem to slow it down at all. It studies you with cautious intelligence through the gaze of one eye. Oh shit, its nose comes up to your chest level and _sniffs_. You’ll defend yourself with your psionics if you have to, but you would prefer not to fuck up this social interaction any further. Fuck social interactions. You want to flee back to your coding project.

“Jade, I’d like you to meet the Troll Rosetta Stone and his awkward sidekick.”

“Hi!”

“Ex-Helmsman Mituna Captor at your service. I’m flattered, but I don’t actually study any dead languages. You’ve gotta draw the line somewhere.”

You are too busy trying not to get eaten to comment. The barkbeast lusus lolls its tongue, wags its tail at you and nudges at your arm with its moist snout.

“Aw, Bec likes you! You don’t have to be scared, silly! He just wants scratches.”

Jade sort of reminds you of FF, and it helps to put you at ease. You think about how distant the life you left behind feels as you cautiously reach out to pet the creature’s head. Bec leans against your side, tail wagging at warp speed. “I’m Sollux Captor.”

“Oh! Is Mituna your Ancestor then?”

“Yeah, it’s kindof a long story.”

At this point Bec decides to be equitable and investigate your Ancestor as well. He circles around Mituna several times huffing and sniffing up and down. Mituna’s face lights up in a smile. “Hey there buddy, do I smell interesting or do I just stink? Can you count how many planets I’ve been to?” He cautiously feels around with his psionics to figure out the shape of the animal he can’t see with his eyes. Bec appears to enjoy this, because he rolls over onto his back and wags his tail before Mituna can even try to reach out with his hand. “Missing a leg and an eye, huh? How many Imperial Drones have _you_ killed? You must be a crusty old fart like me.” Mituna sits cross legged in the air and gently floats to the ground beside Bec. He reaches out and gives the beast a belly rub, conspiratorially stage whispering “Don’t tell Meulin,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.

“Looks like you’ve both just passed Jade’s test. So, what can we do for you gentlemen?”

“Are you interested in recycling a gently used escape pod in exchange for some supplies?” MT asks. “Money would be nice too. We came here without so much as two rusty Ceagars to rub together.”

***

MacGuivered pirate rigs don’t _have_ escape pods. You know this for a fact because you’ve had a hell of a time repairing several of them. This could be your first good chance to get your hands on some genuine Imperial Fleet technology instead of the dinged up half rusted scraps you usually manage to scrounge up from the salvage yard. “Show us the goods first.” You’ve got your stone faced expression firmly in place and your voice is flat and level, but you get the distinct impression that your guests can tell how keenly interested you are anyway. Damn it. Either you’re losing your edge or they’re even more frighteningly sharp than you initially pegged them for. It pisses you off and makes you glad you decided to trust them at the same time.

You decide to take Jade and her Dreambot, Sawtooth, Squarewave, Lil’ Seb, a folded pile of boxes and a set of tools with you in case you need them to dismantle and carry things, while Bec and your Dirk Bots stay behind to guard the fort. Sollux gives you a basic description of where you’re headed and you’re on your way. He leads the group past the outskirts of town to a recently disturbed patch of dry dirt, where he wrenches a round, charred hunk of metal right out of the ground with less effort than it would take you to scoop up a handful of water. With spooky brain powers that strong it makes you wonder how anyone ever managed to force these two to become helmsmen in the first place.

“The servers are not for sale,” Sollux points out as he opens up the hatch.

Sweet jegus, you are getting yourself into so much shit. Everything on the inside is drowning in fuchsia. Unbidden, your eyebrow slowly rises over the top of your shades. These two psionic trolls have somehow liberated themselves from none other than the Empress herself. Somewhere out there she must be raging mad and looking for a new pilot. You’re going to spend the next decade weeping manly tears of joy to this mental image.

“Dude.”

“Wow!” Jade agrees as she sticks her head right in for a closer look.

“Yeah, um.” Mituna shrinks in on himself and turns his whole head away. “Sorry for single handedly fucking up your planet. Flooding, mass extinctions, plasma beams raining down from the sky, that was all me. And I _like_ Earth, it’s so pretty and blue.”

“MT, don’t go dream bubble on me again,” Sollux scolds.

“But Sollux, there’s even a red planet right in the next orbit!”

“ _MT_.”

“Hey don’t worry about it, I’m not going to blame you for having to do your job. It was way before my time anyway. That was why you escaped, right?”

For a fraction of a second Sollux’s eyes flash at you so literally it makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. “Have you ever _seen_ a Helmsman?”

“We’ve traveled with a few dozen illegal ones, does that count?” Jade asks. “They seem to do okay. They accelerate the ship one at a time in shifts, or all of them at once if there’s an emergency and if they really overdo it they have to rest for a few days.”

“No, it _really_ doesn’t.”

“Shit, I _wish_ that was the standard Imperial starship code of practice.”

“Have you ever seen the hard drive of a desktop grub?”

“Yeah.” You don’t think you like where this is going.

“Picture all the wires. Now look at us and ask yourself why we’re full of holes.”

That’s… pretty disgusting. Your mouth flattens out into a thin, speechless line. It only gets creepier as Mituna floats some kind of weird fuchsia combination between a helmet, goggles and a camera into his hands, puts it on and cranes his head around all over the place to look directly at all of you for the first time- with the camera, not his eyes. What did they even _do_ to him?

Jades eyes widen. “Oh no! I thought those were battle scars.”

“They’re from when we were installed. You don’t need to hear the details, but think about this: Where does _your_ power come from?” Sollux casts a pointed glance at the group of robots idling around the unearthed escape pod.

“Probably millions of you. I’m going to hazard a guess here and assume you’re about to do something about it.”

“I tried to talk him out of it,” Mituna sighs.

Sollux’s grin is full of sharp fangs, starkly white against the dark lacquer of his skin. You still think he’s full of shit but you’re starting to like him anyway.

“Consider your escape pod sold, hatchmate. I might even throw myself into the bargain for free.”


	40. Chapter 40

It’s going to take several trips to carry the leftovers down into the cave. You spend the entirety of the first one continuously fussing over Tavros, who stubbornly insists on trying to help you when he should be focusing on navigating his still shaky legs around uneven terrain, slippery rocks, puddles, and patches of ice. “Watch your step, god damn it,” you grumble. He already scared the fuck out of you once tonight and that was more than enough.

Tavros just smiles at you, amusement crinkling up the corner of his eyes, and you don’t get what’s so damn funny. “Karkat, this would go a lot faster, actually, if you didn’t keep getting in my way.”

“What do you mean, ‘in my way’? There’s so much space in here we could host a fucking ballroom dance-” Tavros very nearly nails you with his right horn as he ducks under an overhanging rock that you didn’t even notice. Okay point taken. For once you’re not even sure whether to be jealous or grateful that he has so much height and horn span on you, and that leaves you feeling so confused you wonder what kind of parallel universe you’ve accidentally fallen into.

“Fine, have it your way,” you try to recover after several awkward seconds of abrupt silence. Because you’re as stubborn as he is, you give him a little more space without getting completely out of arm’s reach, just in case. “See if I come and clean up the spatters from your think pan after you slip on ice and plant your sniffnodes in the rock. That’s the _last_ thing I need.”

The slope of the floor shallows out to mostly horizontal, and you can finally breathe again. You already feel a huge improvement over the climate conditions outside. Here the air is pleasantly warm and moist in your air sacs, without a wisp of chilling wind to speak of. A patch of ice forms a convenient indent along the right wall at your feet, a perfect place to freeze the meat you’ve already cut for later use. As you put away your armload of meat cubes and Tavros heads back up the slope to fetch more, your eyes follow the continuation of the cave’s entrance tunnel. It leads into a mostly flat room with a steaming, nearly boiling stream that gouges a small gorge into the rock by a wall covered in ruddy lichen. The opposite wall is completely coated in shimmering icicles. Hot and red, cold, and blue, roughly symmetrical- you’d bet your left horn Sollux would love this room.

Your stomach is full; your heart is empty; your body feels like cold lead. What’s the _point_? Sollux is a _ship battery_ and your best hope not to spend the rest of your life using this hollow wet rock as a respiteblock is the remote possibility that the Empress actually remembers to come back for you in five sweeps. She might make you into a Threshecutioner like your old childhood dream. You might rise through the ranks fighting for a cause that makes you sick to your stomach just to stay alive, turning a blind eye as a thousand more psionic trolls are installed against their will. You might decide you’d rather stay on this frozen ass crack of a planet forever if it wouldn’t mean passing up your only chance to see Sollux one more time- an awful version of him that no one should ever see. Would you even have the courage to step into the helmsblock? Losing your moirail is the worst kind of grief, because it would sully the memory of your relationship to even _tell_ anyone how you feel about him until you have already moved on.

Tavros frowns at you as he picks his way back down the slippery slope. “Karkat?”

You don’t have the energy left to try not to cry in front of him. Hiding your blood color streaked face by reflex, you shake your head in lieu of an answer as the first ugly surge of emotion constricts around your throat.

Tavros understands. He doesn’t ask you offensive questions like ‘are you okay?’ or ‘what’s wrong?’

“…Do you, um, want a hug?”

“Yes,” you reply in the tiniest, most embarrassing hoarse squeak. Yes, you remind yourself, you’re allowed to do that. But then you can’t squeeze into the same narrow section of tunnel at the same time- Tavros’s horns are too wide, his legs are too long, you _both_ nearly sit on his wings- and as you awkwardly scoot into the wider cavern his eyes take on that sharp I Told You So Because I’m the Camp Master gleam; he thoughtfully sizes up the horns on your head and asks: “So Karkat, did you still want to trade?”

Warmth blooms in your gut. You flush hopelessly cherry red and cling to him and laugh and cry at the same time.

“The thing I like about you is, you’re like a caterpillar with eye spots.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BONUS UPD8, because I really need this right now.


	41. Chapter 41

When Karkat is finished crying himself out, he seems relieved and utterly exhausted. So are you, considering that both of you can count the hours of sleep you’ve snatched over the past two or three days on one hand, but you expend the last of your energy hauling down the rest of the wooly beast meat anyway because you don’t want to make Karkat do it. By the time you’re finished a few minutes later, he’s already out cold in a comfortable spot in the middle of the pool’s edge. You settle down close by in slightly cooler water, where you fall asleep so quickly you barely remember how you got there.

After you’ve taken the opportunity to catch up on your sleep, you find that the best way to keep Karkat from backsliding too heavily into grief and yourself from dwelling on your situation too much is to keep yourselves busy. The trouble is, carving up and storing the rest of the meat, cleaning up the hide and sorting out the exoskeleton fragments you think you might be able to use doesn’t take too long. You need to figure out something else to do with all the free time you’ve suddenly been saddled with.

Well, there is a lot more of this planet you haven’t seen. You don’t even have to go out into the cold to investigate a little bit more about it. “Hey Karkat, I think we should stay up late and go explore more of the cave when the most light gets in, that is, if you want to.”

Karkat shrugs and makes a vague noise of agreement. He seems calm if still rather glum as he dabbles in the imprecise art of smashing exoskeleton pieces into better tools than the blunt rock he started out with. You really hope this excursion will give him something more cheerful to think about.

In the early hours of dawn, you cook a big meal in the hottest part of the cave, eat your fill and pocket the leftovers to take with you on your trip. (For the record, wooly beast does taste better fried). You carry your clothes with you and wade across the pond until you get to the back of the first room in the cavern, then you slip your sun cloak back on around your wings. You follow the trickling spring onward into the dark. Karkat follows you and wraps the wooly beast pelt around his shoulders like a thick cloak. Where there’s room for you to walk side by side, he travels along the icy side while you walk closer to the heat.

All the icicles reflect the growing sunlight from the cave entrance well, but there’s still only so far you can go using a combination of your night vision and your horn senses. Your legs have been steadily regaining their strength but this is about your limit. You’re going to need to rest for a while, and then it’s best to turn back. Just when you’re about to tell him so, Karkat guides you through a narrow passageway with his hands. He pulls at your waist and stares, wide eyes fully dilated, studying your face as you carefully tilt your horns out of the way. The moment has all the intimacy of a whispered secret, and you soon find out why.

There is light here. The room beyond the passageway phosphoresces softly as if lit from within by the glow of Alternia’s green moon. The source is a group of bioluminescent spherical jelly-like organisms tumbling gently across the surface of another warm shin-deep pool in the stream like a miniature sky full of stars. Green reflects across the entire room, making the bare crystalline walls glitter and throwing the dripping formations of icicles into sharp relief.

You find a warm dry spot, sit down leaning against each other and eat the food you brought along, a little picnic shared in silence. After a long, still moment staring thoughtfully into the room, Karkat comes forth with a heavy topic that must have been weighing on him all night. “If she comes back for us in five sweeps… would you go?”

“Would we really have a choice?”

“We _always_ have a choice, even if all the options stink like a backed up load gaper.”

“Do you mean, if she asked me whether I would like to be a Cavalreaper after all, or stay on this planet forever, or get culled?”

“Have you _really_ thought about what joining the Imperial Fleet would mean? What if you could live a normal, _safe_ life and see most of your friends again, and all you have to do is swallow all the shit they’ve put you through and forget about all the poor assholes you had to trample over to get there?”

“Gosh that’s… everybody avoids talking about that. Is that what you want?”

“It used to be everything I _ever_ wanted, and I can’t even lie and say the real reason I’m on the fence now is because it’s personal. No, it’s because I couldn’t fucking _run_.” He expresses his disgust at himself with an eloquent shrug and turns his wide eyes on you as if for guidance. “So would you go?”

You roll it over in your mind a few times before answering. “I think, honestly, if it was just me by myself, I would rather join the Fleet than stay here and definitely die, even though I would not feel very good about it at all. What about you?”

“Sometimes I think I’d rather be culled, and sometimes I think if I die now then what was the _point_ of struggling so hard to make it this far? I’ll probably just do whatever it takes to stay alive out of spite.”

“Well if you decided to stay here instead, I think I would rather stay here with you.”

“Hah, staying on this planet and getting culled are practically the same fucking thing.”

“Um, no. I am going to have to seriously disagree with you Karkat. It doesn’t have to be so bad. We could be the only ones alive here now, but we are definitely not the only criminals or rebels or mutants who they ever put here. Did you see the bones? I think, after we make some really warm clothes and stockpile a lot of food, we could find a way to get back to the landing site and keep an eye on it in case they abandon someone else. It will be worth it if we can even help one person. Or we could search and see if anyone else survived. We could _make_ something if we stay here, eventually. We can’t if we get culled.”

“Are you telling me you want us to make our own frozen Empire for exiled rejects?” Karkat pictures this, and a smile slowly spreads across his face. He abruptly climbs halfway into your lap, grabs you by the shoulders and stares you down with a wild grin. “Let’s do it, you incorrigible optimist. We’ll sculpt a giant middle finger out of ice and then set it on fire. It will be the shining beacon of our civilization for a thousand generations of wayward immigrants.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LET ME TELL YOU it was a struggle finding the happy medium between 'so red it needs its own side fic' and 'too pale' for this chapter.
> 
> There may or may not be a Chapter 41 and a Half 'so red it needs its own side fic' fic in the works.
> 
> >.>  
> *cough*


	42. Chapter 42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOPS MY HANDS SLIPPED. Those of you who would like to read some more-than-T-rated Tavkat fluff that takes place after chapter 41, go here:
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/3897520/chapters/8718457
> 
> \-------

Sollux, Dirk and Jade are talking shop about code and wires and machinery and robots while they carefully dismantle the escape pod into unrecognizable pieces. What a snoozefest. You’ve finally found a language you don’t _want_ to understand. Jegus, is this what _you_ sound like to Sollux when you get into a really good anecdote about your other _other_ favorite obscure planet full of obscure people speaking an obscure language? You would almost feel bad about talking his ear off so much if you didn’t find it entertaining to annoy him.

For lack of anything better to do, you go back and update your shopping list:

A customer sketchy enough to take the escape pod off your hands: Check and double check.

A wifi connection: Dirk and Jade’s home internet will suffice. Sollux won’t even need a new cover for the starmap server’s husktop as long as he keeps the Tyrian pink hidden on the way through the streets.

Weapons: Considering that Dirk can forge all kinds of custom weaponry for his robots from materials much shittier than the ones you’re supplying, coming up with a lance and a pair of sickles should be easy.

Computerized shades: Pretty much all you can pick up from their conversation is that Dirk happens to be an expert in this field. Between him and Sollux they should be able to transfer the capabilities of your helmet into a much less cumbersome custom design within a few waking cycles. In red and blue. Hell fucking yes. Dirk is your new favorite alien.

Red and blue shades for Sollux: You catch some snippet along the lines of “While I’m at it… sure, why the hell not. You can never have too many computers.” Nerds.

Anti mind-scourge device: Apparently the extent of control a mind scourge has over a human is to be able to make them fall asleep, which is still inconvenient but a hell of a lot better than being puppeted into a killing spree. If Jade can somehow program a signal modifier to make it work the same way on a troll and then transfer your consciousness to a Dreambot, you would never really lose control over your mind at all. She has no idea how she’ll be able to test it yet, but suddenly your shades don’t sound like nearly as frivolous as they did when you first added them to your list.

As for clothing and food, the humans have a few acquaintances they’d like you to pay a visit to elsewhere among the narrow shop fronts of the marketplace, but it’s going to take a couple of hours before they’re ready to go. Looks like it’s prime time for a nap. You sprawl out on a nice lumpy pile of dismantled escape pod parts before the robots can start packing them away and doze the fuck off. Ah, life’s little luxuries.

***

You run a little neighborhood business that defies categorization. There is a little café with tea and dainty little snacks and a growing collection of worn, well loved books. There are pillows so ornately embroidered with insincere messages they could make any kismesis blush. There are hand knitted scarves, hats and sweaters to ward off the chill in wintertime. There is an always changing display of used clothing which you are willing to mend and tailor to suit the needs of your customers. And when WV gets overzealous, you also stock the shelves with all the jams, jellies and preserves that were too much for him to carry to the farmer’s market. He’ll farm _anywhere_ if you give him a patch of soil with enough light.

To the ordinary customer who walks through your doors, you are Merchandise Purveyor, night shift partner to Rose Lalonde. However, if your activities should attract a batch of Drones yet again, you still have a loaded rifle squirreled away. The authorities haven’t branded you as the Markswoman in Pink for nothing. And if the *right* person asks, you are still the Medical Prentice at heart, always ready to take those who have nowhere else to turn to under your wing for help.

This is _definitely_ a Medical Prentice moment. Just look at the two trolls who Dirk and Jade escorted in through the kitchen door! They are thin- one of them with so little muscle left that he floats rather than trying to walk- dirty and riddled with injuries, some larger than others. You spring into action before your human friends even introduce them, making clipped gestures to emphasize your agitation.

“For heavens sakes Dirk, fetch Mr. Waggon! These injuries look like they can wait a bit longer, but the least we can do is offer these poor dears a hot meal and I haven’t prepared anything suitable for a troll.”

“Yes Ma’am.” He switches to Military Alternian. “Sollux, Mituna, meet MP. Not sure if she goes by Medical Prentice or Matronly Peasant at the moment, I’m getting vibes of both. Later, I’m out.”

Mituna sends red and blue energy out into the room until he can locate where everyone is and blinks Prospitian in your general direction. “Lady, I can’t see worth shit, so I’d appreciate it if you could just tap whatever you’re saying on my shoulder, thanks.”

“Of course.” You tap on Mituna’s shoulder and blink at Sollux. “Either MP, Medical Prentice or Matronly Peasant are fine. I sent Dirk out to fetch one of our Troll friends who should be able to cook something for you. In the mean time you two can have a bath and I’ll see if I can find you some proper clothing.”

Mituna looks absolutely delighted. “Fuck yeah, an ablution AND food that doesn’t come out of a can!”

Sollux furrows his eyebrows in concentration. “Troll? Ablution?” He switches back to Military Alternian to complain. “MT, I literally only got two words out of the entire thing she said.”

“Good, that’s two more words than before I started schoolfeeding your ass.”

“Will you translate for me?”

“Nope! The best way to help you is not to help you at all.”

“You asshole.”

“Use smaller words,” Mituna signals at you and winks.

Oh dear. Well at least with that impish attitude his condition can’t be as bad as at it looks.


	43. Chapter 43

Life hasn’t been easy to figure out these past few sweeps, but you think you’re finally starting to get the hang of it. You’ve tried your hand at a lot of different things which you could become passable at but don’t particularly enjoy, like helping out Dirk and Jade with mechanical tasks that don’t require a lot of precision, and gardening, and first aid. Then MP taught you how to cook and you took to it like a seadweller to water. Eventually you decided that you miss Earth bugs enough that you based your own small business on selling them.

It was easy enough to get a shipment of earthworms, mealworms and crickets to start with since humans on Earth use them for fishing bait and pet food, and you’ve been growing big fat batches of them on a diet of WV’s vegetable peelings ever since. You toast them, spice them and sell little brown paper bags of them on the street in the more troll populated areas of town. You’re already getting a growing crowd of regulars after one of your customers got his rather difficult auspisticees to shut up and stop quarreling by shoving bags of cinnamon crickets into their faces. You should start calling them Auspice Crisps. Quadrants sell. Fuck yeah, you had been stuck on coming up with a brand name for ages. You write it down in your Accounts book and underline it twice.

A business owner’s work is never finished, and you’re surprisingly okay with this. From evening to daybreak every night you’re up to your nook in cooking and cleaning, updating records of your finances and managing your inventory. You do a bit of catering on the side, and you like to experiment with new recipes when business is slow. Maybe one day if business is good enough you’ll be able to afford your own restaurant. It will be an uphill battle. You’ve had to move so often, having to start your customer base over from scratch every time.

Shit, Dirk is coming your way and he _never_ comes with good news. You are now officially closed for the night- not like you have a convenient little sign to flip over for the benefit of all the trolls who aren’t actually paying attention to you. Marketing would be so much easier if you were higher up the hemocaste ladder. Then again, so would everything else.

“Hey Shitwagon, MP has a job for you.”

Ah, one of _those_. Your catering for MP is pro bono, of course. Your continued association with the farm hands brings you more trouble and saves you from it in equal measure. Trouble is as much a part of your life as the uneasy stretches of peace in between. “Table for how many?”

“Two.”

“Alright, let me pick up a few things first.”

“’Kay cool. Don’t tell me and don’t show me.”

Dirk can go fuck himself. He has no appreciation for Alternian cuisine. You pick up three of the juiciest live grubs on the market and head home. Knowing MP there won’t be time to try anything fancy tonight so you’ll just stick with quick and easy pan seared grub slices, garlic and whichever garden vegetables WV is willing to share. You fucking love garlic. It is the best Earth vegetable. Whistling tunelessly, you step through the kitchen door and set to work.

***

“The ablution was a ruse, Sollux! Get away while you still can! It’s too late for me now. Arrrgh.”

You make your way from the ablution block to MP’s makeshift medical block. “Quit being a wriggler, MT.” Your Ancestor is clean, disinfected and bandaged, frowning doubtfully at the cream colored collared shirt MP is buttoning up for him over the tight pair of blue jeans he’s already wearing. She hands him a tan leather jacket and matching shoes and nods when he obediently puts them on, evidently satisfied with the outfit she managed to piece together on short notice out of all the odds and ends in the store. You’re impressed that she managed to find clothes that fit _and_ match.

MP beckons you over, blinking “come here.” She sends MT on his way with a look that definitely reads “this isn’t over”.

MT shouts a parting shot at you as he flees out the door and down the stairs. “I warned you! Who’s laughing now? Ehehehehehehe.”

You roll your eyes at the direction he departed in. Unlike _some people_ you don’t think it’s a big deal to let MP fuss over you for a little while.

In the end she doesn’t let you wear a mismatched pair of shoes (who would she ever be able to sell the opposite mismatched pair to?) But you’re more than happy with the red and blue striped sweater and the comfortable grey jeans you get for being a chill patient. You thank her and follow in the direction MT went. Something smells really good.

***

You are trying not to boggle like a wriggler seeing her hive for the first time. Where the fuck did the Medical Prentice even _find_ this guy? Your first dinner guest is a powerful psionic- you can feel your horns prickle before he even enters the room- who just _has_ to be a gold blood with those deceptively dull mismatched glowing eyes. He is bone thin and wrinkled. If you had to guess his age based on his blood color you’d say he’s easily pushing a hundred sweeps, but he seems so energetic it’s hard to tell. Shit, you haven’t even _seen_ a real live gold blood in person since before your Ascension. What are the chances that a gold blood psionic wouldn’t be at the helm of some fancy-ass battleship in the Fleet? Probably somewhere approaching zero, but you can’t decide whether you’re tempted to ask.

You decide that the chance was _definitely_ zero up until recently when you come to realize that he knows more about Earth and its solar system than _you_ do after having spent the majority of your adult life there. You are struck with a sudden sense of foreboding. It’s probably time to start packing up your shit again.

Your other dinner guest turns out to be his _Descendant_. You are so done. You think you need to faceplant into some sopor slime for a while.

“What’s with him?”

“Dunno, but if you don’t hurry up and eat your grub slices I call dibs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't decide what I wanted the Captors to wear and how they would interact with Shitwagon. Doodling their outfits helped me get over a bit of writer's block.
> 
> Here's what Mituna will look like in his shades (a doodle from earlier that I only just scanned):  
> [](http://imgur.com/rTQt0nM)
> 
> And here are Mituna and Sollux in their current outfits plus the shades they don't have yet.
> 
> [](http://imgur.com/gprF3G5)  
> 
> 
> MT looks like a rock star. *cough Mick Jagger cough*
> 
> Sollux looks like a nerd.


	44. Chapter 44

You can’t relax. You’re not sure if you want to listen to the indistinct conversations floating up the stairs toward you, but they worry you enough to keep you from falling asleep as well. The sopor does nothing to soothe your nerves, you don’t have a moirail to pap you and tell you everything’s going to be okay, and the orange juice in the fridge is starting to look really tempting. You know getting drunk will only make the situation worse, but you have to do _something_ before you go completely shithive. You wipe most of the sopor slime off, shower and absentmindedly put on the same clothes you were wearing before you tried to go to sleep.

A little fresh air might do you some good. When you walk all the way to Dirk and Jade’s robot shop to ask him what’s going on, you find Mituna Captor’s descendant who you didn’t stick around long enough to catch the name of sprawled on his stomach across a shin deep pile of fuchsia colored scraps of machinery, typing rapid fire lines of code into a fuchsia colored laptop which is plugged into a fuchsia colored Helmsman’s helmet, an expensive looking apiculture network and a pointy pair of Dirk’s computerized shades. Jegus fuck, there are only two tyrian trolls alive right now and one of them is still on Alternia preventing Gl’bgolyb from killing everyone.

Mituna Captor isn’t _a_ helmsman, he’s _The_ Helmsman. You would find it impossible to believe the wild rumor that the Battleship Condescension has had the same gold blooded pilot since it was commissioned thousands upon thousands of sweeps ago if it weren’t for the fact that you saw him not an hour ago sitting at the same dinner table with his descendant. What does that even make his descendant? Starships only have one helmsman, it doesn’t make any sense that they ended up together. For a while you just stand there with your jaw flapping uselessly, unable to string together a coherent thought.

Dirk pauses in a tiny, delicate welding job to quirk an eyebrow in your direction. “’Sup Shitwagon?”

Captor the younger lets out a little huff of a laugh without looking up from the screen.

“Dirk Cullbait Strider, I’d like to have a _word_ with you.” You pull him aside into the respiteblock area of his shop. “What the unholy _fuck_ are you dragging me into this time?” You hiss quietly at him.

“I’ve never dragged you into jack shit. You’ve voluntarily fallen ass backwards into it all by yourself.”

The saddest part is, he’s _right_. “Just explain to me what you’re planning to do with all this pink shit that was stolen from the Condesce.”

Dirk minutely shrugs one shoulder. “Building robots, obviously.”

“You don’t need _him_ coding for you to do that.”

“Oh that’s for a prototype of a sweet pair of shades for Captor Senior so he’ll be able to see.”

“For _fuck’s_ sake, you know what I _meant_.”

“…Which they’re going to need to hijack a space ship to go rescue their friends who were ditched on a cold-ass planet in the middle of nowhere, and all the _rest_ of the helmsmen in the space port, while they’re at it. We’ll just play it by ear from there.”

“ _We_?”

“You think the other farmhands would pass up the opportunity to spring some other poor assholes out of slavery?”

“You’re actually shithive enough to go _with_ them?”

“Eh, we’ll only be in marginally more shit than for killing a subjuggulator. We should be ready to go in a day or two. It’s cool with me if you want to play it safe and stay here with your fried bugs.”

“Well Strider, it was pain in the ass knowing you. Good luck.” 

You stagger back to the hive you share with Rose and the Carapacians farmhands feeling more troubled than when you left. You need to talk to MP. Maybe she can help to put your mind at ease in that calming overly protective lusus type way of hers. Too bad the only way you can guess what she’s saying is through a frustrating game of charades. You resign yourself to seeking her out in the makeshift medical block. She looks up at you, crinkles her eyes and waves a cheerful greeting. She is currently in the process of converting it into a guest respite block with fresh sheets and fluffy pillows, presumably for Mituna since his descendant already seems perfectly comfortable at Strider’s hive. Bless her blood pusher, she is going about this all wrong. “Medical Prentice, you know trolls don’t normally sleep on horizontal reclining surfaces, right?”

MP inclines her head at you.

You sigh, gesturing at the items she is neatly encapsulating in white sheets. “The… rectangular squishy thing, the other rectangular thing you wrap around yourself, the pillows- they’re all too soft. If you don’t have a spare recuperacoon the next best thing you can make is a pile, the harder and lumpier the better.”

For a moment she bows her head and lifts a hand to her chin, thinking about what she could use. You can see when she gets an idea by the sudden spark in her eyes. She lifts her head, pointing straight upward with one finger - _Aha!_ \- and steers you by the arm until you’re back downstairs in the shop front. She points at Rose’s bookshelves then looks back to you for approval. Yeah, those should work. As soon as you nod back at her (it feels weird talking to her aloud when she can only answer back in gestures), she loads up your arms with a stack of books and gets you to help her carry them upstairs.

“Hey, why are you asking _me_ to carry heavy shit when we could just ask the guy who could lift up the entire hive without blinking an eye instead?”

MP tells you you’re being an asshole to her guest, i.e. she stands up on the very tips of her toes to thwap you lightly between the horns with one of the books before arranging it into the start of a pile with far more care than is necessary. Then she pokes you in the belly fat for emphasis.

Fine, you _could_ stand to lose a bit of weight, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to take it without complaint. “Fuck you, I _do_ exercise. I’m on my feet all day.”

MP strongly radiates disapproval in your general direction and sends you back downstairs for another armload. The second time you reach the top of the staircase you’re already out of breath. You wonder for the umpteenth time how you let this happen to your life. “Wait, MP,” you pant, “there was an actual reason I wanted to come and talk to you.” She makes you finish carrying up all the books before she’s willing to listen. God damn it.

You try again, lowering your voice until it’s barely above a whisper. “MP, you know those two are escaped helmsmen, right?”

The look she darts back at you is downright defiant. _And?_

That should have stopped you, but no, you just _have_ to put your walk stub in your wind hole. “They’re _powerful, gold blooded_ escaped helmsmen who belong to the _Empress_!”

MP _smacks_ you. It barely hurts the tough black skin of your jaw, but it does stun you into wide eyed silence, the gears rapidly spinning in your think pan. You sink into a seated position at the top of the steps.

“Shit, _shit_ , you’re right, I slipped into slave driver talk again, I’m sorry. I just, I’m _scared_ , alright? We’re all fucking cullbait. It keeps _escalating_ and I don’t know how to get out, or if it’s even possible, or if that’s even what I _want_. If I don’t want to run, I have to fight. If I don’t want to fight, I have to hide. If I don’t want to hide, then I shouldn’t have deserted in the first place. There aren’t any _safe_ options left.”

MP’s eyes have softened, but she still shakes her head at you. You’ve already had so many variants of this conversation, it stays unresolved, and then you just shove it to the back of your mind when you find a new place to try to settle in for a few perigrees. Each time you’re less sure if there will be a next time. She gestures down the stairs at you. But you were just in the shop together- oh she means the kitchen, where Mituna is? On the one hand, having managed to escape from the claws of the Condesce makes him terrifying where before you were cautiously in awe of him. On the other hand, he _must_ be capable of giving damned good advice, even if it’s totally illegal. “I’ll… think about it.”

She smiles at you encouragingly and shoos you along. Well, he did seem pretty laid back when you were in the kitchen with him before. Here goes nothing. You descend the steps and turn into the nutrition block. Someone has cleaned the dishes, but Mituna is still sitting exactly where you left him, leaning back in his chair with his head tipped back slightly, his eyes closed, and his hands folded over his stomach. Not only is he utterly at ease, he is honest to god _purring_ with a long-fanged smile of contentment on his face. You feel slightly emboldened; it looks like plying him with food was a good idea. You awkwardly clear your throat to announce your presence.

For a brief instant you feel the air pressure increasing around you. It disappears all at once, and Mituna’s smile widens with recognition. “Ah Waggon, I forgot what it was like to feel so full I don’t want to move. I may cry when I inevitably have to resign myself to reconstituted cluckbeast eggs again,” he greets you like his new best friend, grinning sightlessly in your general direction. You wonder if he’s like this with everybody.

“Mister Captor,” you boldly interject before he can build up enough steam for a monologue.

“Hah! I still can’t get over how you insist on making me sound _respectable_ instead of the insolent, obnoxious, lecherous, foul-mouthed upstart I’ve always been.”

“But you’re older and higher up on the hemospectrum-”

“The hemospectrum can kiss my shriveled shame globes. Right now I’m literally blind to your eye color and whatever sign you’re wearing anyway.”

“Okay. Well.” Just as you suspected, this conversation is already slipping into controversial territory and it hasn’t even started yet. “The thing is, there’s something I wanted to ask you.”

“Yeah?”

“If you’re pretty sure you’re eventually fucked either way, how do you decide whether to run, fight or give up?”

His grin fades and his expression goes very distant. “Simple. It all depends on who’s going down with you.”

You reflect on this in silence for a very long time. “And does it make a difference which you choose?”

Mituna smiles at you, sober and sad. “Let me tell you a story about someone who once helped me answer the same question, and you can decide for yourself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just broke 40k words. This thing is officially a novel.


	45. Chapter 45

My story takes place a thousand meters below the surface of Alternia at the bottom of a mine. It was a long-ass time ago, back before we ran out of shit to mine on our home planet and before the Imperial Fleet managed to tear a swath of destruction far enough to find aliens to mine shit for us somewhere else. You’ll have to forgive me if it starts off a bit hazy. I think we were under mind control but I can’t really remember. There were twenty? Thirty? Of us, rust, copper and gold, and it was so fucking dark all the time that we could only see by the light of our own eyes and the senses of our horns. We would wake up and eat something, and then we must have blown up a bunch of rocks because we would be tired and hungry again and there would be rubble and the place suddenly felt so much wider. We would maybe try to chat a little over dinner if the boss decided to fuck off for the morning instead of harassing us and if we could work up the mood for it. Then it was time to go to our coons full of low grade sopor. That’s it. That could have been my whole life. There was nothing to talk about, nothing to see, and no freedom to use our powers, but as long as we didn’t try to start any trouble it was relatively safe and easy and we never lacked for anything we needed. Can you believe I could have spent fifty or a hundred sweeps never moving from one spot? Obviously I didn’t, but it still boggles my pan to think about it.

Now I want you to picture something. You’re dead asleep when all of the sudden this white glow wakes you up out of nowhere. The first thing that might cross your pan is ‘who turned on the lights’, or ‘which asshole forgot to close the blinds in the middle of the day’, but then you remember that you’re deep in a layer of solid rock and there _are_ no fucking lights, and there’s no way in hell you’re getting back to sleep now.

At this point I was scared shitless but I just had to look. Picture a black hooded shadow thrown into relief by a much larger glowing robed figure standing behind it. Oh good, I thought, it’s only a pair of ghosts. Ghosts are mostly okay, well they used to be but let’s not get into that. As long as they aren’t out for revenge they’re rather depressing to deal with at worst. I figured they weren’t going to be any more difficult to deal with than the constant static in my head from the voices of the dying, so I looked again.

I was actually disappointed when they turned out not to be ghosts at all. The glow was an exasperated jade blood trying to keep the dust off her skirt and the shadow was a hemononymous troll about yay high- no wait, shorter, he wasn’t even past his adult molt yet then- with this big floor-length sun cloak on, no weapon, no powers to speak of, the most _stubborn_ look of determination on his face, and horns you could barely even see. I mean that with the greatest affection of course. That wouldn’t stop him from rolling his eyes at me for saying it, but I digress.

I thought ‘who the fuck let these trespassers in at god knows what hour of the afternoon and why is there a jade blood in here’, but that would have been too rude to ask from someone nearly the same shade as the boss, so I replaced that question with some other polite bullshit. You know how it is. But the polite bullshit evaporated pretty quickly when the kid came out and told me he wanted to get us all out of there, straight up, no preamble, as haughty as a seadweller but with all the wrong words.

Why? Because we deserve better than to be treated like objects to be used until we are broken and then tossed aside to the culling drones. Because our worth should be determined by how kind we are to other people, not by the color of our blood, our material wealth, our powers or lack thereof, or even our valor in battle. Because our lives will change for the better if we all strive to get ahead in life by lending a helping hand to others and letting them help us in turn, not by trampling over everyone who gets in our way.

Think what you like; I’m not just telling you what he said because I’m parroting the words. I wholeheartedly drink that fruit punch now, but the first time I heard it I couldn’t decide if he was shithive or listening to his words was like breathing air for the first time. I kept expecting Ro- the jade blood to tell him off for speaking out of turn, or to stop, or anything to contradict him, but she never did. Sure it sounded nice, but how were we going to pull it off? Where the hell could we go where we wouldn’t end up right back where we started? All it would take is one coward to sell us out during some moment of weakness for hope of a reward, or a stray chucklevoodoo, or another blue blood with mind control powers and in the best case we’d be back in the mines with fresh bruises and our rations cut in half for the next week.

That may be true, he told me, but if you have helped one person in the interim then you are already farther ahead than you ever would have gotten by letting things stay the same. If I free you and they catch me and cull me tomorrow evening, I will know that I have helped you live one evening in freedom and that will be enough.

What the hell, I didn’t really have anything to lose. So I joined him and his jade blood lusus (I’ll spare you the details unless you really want to hear more about how and why that came about) and later on his matesprit, and they became my closest friends. We had a good run, although looking back on those few sweeps feels like the blink of an eye now. It ended like you would expect. He was tortured, culled and wiped from history. His matesprit was supposed to be culled but ended up exiled instead, his lusus was sold to a gamblignant as a slave, and I ended up in the helmsblock. Sure I was right back to being a slave again, but they’ve never managed to take away all of my self worth since then no matter how hard they try.

His ideal was and has always been a pipe dream. You have no idea how many revolutions I’ve seen going up in flames since then, and those are just the tip of the iceberg. Probably less than a hundredth of them make it far enough for word to drift up to the Condesce, let alone enough that she has to personally do something about it, i.e. use me as a mega death laser. It feels like shit having to do that, but I figure if it wasn’t me then she’d make someone else do it in my place. Now I just try to make the best of the circumstances I’ve been given wherever I am.

Did you know I actually tried to convince Sollux to try and settle in as a helmsman instead of making an attempt to escape? They designed all the stupid fancy security measures after my previous escape attempts and I figured he wouldn’t be able to succeed where I failed. Maybe the only reason why I failed was because I was alone and rebellion really isn’t any fun if you don’t have anyone to share it with. Thankfully Sollux proved me wrong, and here I am still trying to think of a way to stave off the inevitable. In the mean time I’m gonna milk my freedom for all it’s worth because I may never get a chance like this again. We are so royally fucked. I’m glad Sollux at least has a chance to stir up a shit storm before history repeats itself again. We might have a good run before we get caught or I finally keel over from old age without the hagfish around. Or I could hang on to the illusion that we might actually make it this time. I assume it’s like the feeling you get when you buy a lottery ticket, because I’ve never actually had the money to buy one for myself. Heh, I’d be as likely to nap on a pile of cash as I would be to spend it.

Anyway, you would be surprised what happens when you open up and approach everyone you meet with kindness as an equal. Getting a stranger on your side is often as simple as sharing a meal. You’re good at that, by the way.

Wow fuck, I’m tired. It must be getting late. Thanks for humoring me; most people don’t have the patience to listen to me ramble for long. Good luck in whatever you decide to do, and if I don’t see you around in the evening I hope we can meet again some other time. Now let’s see what MP has in store for me. That woman is vaguely terrifying. I swear she has some plans up her sleeve- oh, you mean it? Holy shit, I can’t even remember the last time I slept in an actual recuperacoon with actual sopor. Watch out Waggon, if you keep acting this nice I’ll be tempted to invite you in with me. Ehehehehe.


	46. Chapter 46

Now you need a drink, a moirail _and_ your pan examined, because if Mituna wasn’t obviously joking you might seriously consider taking him up on the offer. It’s hard to listen to him without feeling a stab of pity and a truckload of guilt for the countless times you’ve rationalized the perpetual imprisonment of psionic trolls as a necessity and thought ‘better them than me’. You could cook for him and listen to his stories forever and it would still barely make a dent in the societal debt that you are complicit in.

How is it possible for him to come out of an endless cycle of disappointment with a mischievous grin and waggling eyebrows while you’ve wasted your life fussing over complaints that are frivolous by comparison? How is it that he radiates cheerful confidence even though you know he’s scared of what lies ahead? That _smile_ gets to you the most, his genuine delight in the smallest things you’ve always taken for granted. It’s so startlingly easy to make him happy. _You’ve_ made him happy; he beams at you like you’ve made his night and you’ve barely even met.

His appreciation is all the more addicting for the fact that you don’t deserve it. You only made him dinner because MP asked you. You only offered to let him borrow your recuperacoon out of a sense of horrified guilt and a vague fear of what MP might think if she had been listening in. You are a useless, pudgy, cowardly rustblood who can’t fight worth shit. All your life you have always been so thoroughly convinced that you will never amount to anything no matter how hard you try that you’ve elevated mediocrity to an art form. Now you’re no longer so certain, and it disturbs you so much that it keeps you awake in your pile of books late into the morning.

Then you are stuck with inspiration for a new recipe, and when you catch yourself immediately trying to fit it into the narrative of the farmhands and the helmsmen it finally hits you that you _want_ to help instead of falling ass-backwards into their shenanigans and feeling like you’re in the way all the time. How? You still have no idea, but now that whether or not you want to keep going with Strider has been settled, _how_ feels like a much easier question.

***

You silently curse MT in your think pan for being right. Now you have to learn another foreign language at the same time as Prospitian because DR’s shades are coded in some kind of object-oriented English programming language that doesn’t even _contain_ the word “die”, and you’re having a bitch of a time making his operating system compatible with MT’s interstellar library. You are wasting so much time constantly switching windows between the code for the starmap function, DR’s code, the code you’re trying to write to bridge the gap, MT’s translation function, and a digital textbook to help you wrangle the finer points of the English programming language in a hurry. The syntax alone is a nightmare. You don’t even _have_ those fucking keys on your keyboard. It doesn’t take long before you give up and pull MT’s helmet on, because you need about five more virtual monitors and the ability to type with your brain. You refuse to admit defeat. Horrorterrors help you, you _will_ have this program together in three waking cycles like you promised. The big heist you’re planning will be risky enough to pull off without the added stress of forcing MT to fly blind again while you’re doing it. Oh, and when you’re finished with this coding abomination you still have to hack into the space port security system, do some spying and hatch a plan for a break-in. You spark and hiss at a subroutine that refuses to compile.

“Having fun yet, Captor?”

“Ehehe.” The absurdity of that question makes you start to giggle, and the flat line of incredulity that becomes the shape of his mouth only makes it worse. He really doesn’t know you very well, does he? “Ehehehehe this code is _bilingual_.” This is either legitimately the most fun you’ve ever had or you’re nook deep in another manic phase, probably both. Who cares; you’ll take it.

 _Fuck_ that was supposed to be a rhetorical question. MP finds you still up when she comes around to invite you back to her place for a breakfast that doesn’t involve sugar-frosted carbohydrates drowning in suspicious Earth musclebeast milk, and in that moment she is exactly as scary as MT thinks she is.

“Ooooh somebody’s in trouble!” Mituna hoots at you, that unsympathetic asshole.

God damn it. You stumble after MP, stooped down to her height as she drags you away by the ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter today. Next I need to figure out how Sollux and co. manage to steal a space ship.


	47. Chapter 47

A certain expression comes to mind. You can’t recall now whether it originated from high blooded trolls on Alternia or whether the humans came up with it in English first. Either way ‘you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink’ seems to be a terribly appropriate description for Sollux’s stubborn refusal to fall asleep in spite of all your efforts to get him settled. You just can’t understand it. Waggon assures you that the book pile is nearly as comfortable as it gets. You’ve adjusted the lighting just so. You can visibly see how tired Sollux is after so many consecutive hours spent awake, yet every time you check on him there he is still twitching, tossing and turning, typing away in his head, until you can’t tell whether he’s trying to concentrate or trying to _stop_ concentrating. He is a bundle of nervous energy. His previous elation has long since morphed into irritable frustration, punctuated by quiet growls and long sighs. It’s exhausting just looking at him.

You check on him one last time and find that he has finally fallen asleep. This doesn’t feel like a victory; it feels like the tip of the iceberg.

***

You are awake. You don’t want to be awake. All the half-remembered mush you crammed into your head yesterday has solidified into accessible knowledge; convenient but pointless. If only you could remember why you thought this was so important. Extricating yourself from this pile seems like too much effort so you curl in on yourself and close your eyes instead.

Then you remember it was all because of Karkat, and your eyebrows furrow with the effort of fighting yourself to stay focused on him. What would Karkat be nagging you to do right now if he were here? You start counting on your fingers like an exceptionally slow two sweep old and you don’t even care. Step one: ablutions. You turn the water on extra cold in an attempt to drive the fog out of your think pan. Shit shit shit okay that was… moderately successful. Step two… no, you’re just going to have to put on the same clothes again because you don’t have anything else to wear. At least you’re not going to get tired of your red and blue sweater anytime soon. Step three- you hate how you actually have to run through a checklist for this shit instead of having the pan and the willpower to carry through it on autopilot like a normal fucking troll instead of a disaster. Step three: eat something regardless of whatever meal it’s time for now. You tell yourself you must be hungry. Your think pan has trouble believing you. Your think pan can go fuck itself. You can’t _afford_ to be so sluggish when you have so much shit to get done.

Half drifting, half slouching your way into the nutrition block, you pour yourself listlessly into a seat at the table and slump forward until your face is firmly planted in the crook of your arm. Your horns pick up a pleasant radiating warmth as Shitwagon takes something out of the oven and fills the nutrition block with the smell of exotic spices. You are just curious enough to want to peek over the edge of your arm a little.

***

Late in the evening Captor the Younger ghosts unsteadily into your nutrition block, paying so little attention to his surroundings that he almost smacks right into the door frame. He just came out of the shower and his damp, freshly toweled hair sticks out in clumps all over the place. His red and blue striped sweater is on backwards. He looks nothing like a deadly weapon of destruction, nor the continuation of a legend, nor the cunning escape artist and would-be revolutionary that Mituna makes him out to be. He looks much more like a freshly molted recruit the evening after a wild party. It’s amazing how much seeing him as a troll rather than a Helmsman turns your perspective upside down. 

You sigh and shake your head. “Listen kid, I’m not going to judge you for wanting to celebrate your newfound freedom, but you’d better learn to moderate your sudden taste for fruit juice or soda or human pancake syrup or whatever the fuck it is before you get your drunk ass caught. I’m sorry to tell you there’s no such thing as a hangover cure. The best thing you can do now is drink plenty of water and get some protein in your digestion sac if you think you can keep it down.”

He flips you off with both hands and mutters in a toneless drone you can barely understand, “I’m bipolar, you bulge knot.”

So… not hung over then. You’re not quite sure what that means, let alone how to deal with it, but you _are_ pretty sure it’s a cullable think pan mutation. Poor asshole, they must have only let him live because of his powers. You try to think of a response, fail miserably and then lamely grasp for a change of subject. “Do you want to try my new toasted cricket recipe while it’s fresh out of the oven? I call it Thai Spice Revenge Cycle.”

“Sure, whatever,” he answers with a complete lack of enthusiasm that probably isn’t meant to be a grave insult. Hmph. He may not give a flying fuck that you’ve started growing your own basil or that lemongrass and coconut are a real bitch to get your hands on out here, but you’ll eat your apron if he’s still dead to the world after the chilies catch up to him.

“Don’t touch your eyes,” is all the warning you give him before you set a bowl down in front of him and watch for his reaction. He seems to struggle to sit up straighter, leaning his face heavily into the palm of one hand. He sort of picks at the contents of the bowl for a while, but as soon as he shrugs and bites the first cricket in half he wakes up a little more and starts popping the rest of them into him mouth one by one like grubcorn. Then sure enough, yellow rises to his cheeks. His eyes begin to water, sparking a little at the edges, and in the next instant he makes a mad dash for the sink to guzzle cold water straight out of the faucet.

***

“Holy _fuck_ , you asshole! Are you trying to kill me?” you sputter after a very long moment. There is a raging fire in your mouth and all that water barely helps.

“Hell no, that’s not in my best interest.” Shitwagon’s expression is somewhere between smug pride and poorly hidden desperation for approval. “When you go steal all the spaceships you’re going to need something to help you distract the guards, right? What do you think?”

As the heat in your mouth gradually cools down on its own you’re actually tempted to eat more even though you know you’re going to regret it. “That’s… insidiously delicious.”

“Oooh that’s a great marketing slogan. I’m going to have to write it down.” Without quoting your lisp, you hope. Why did you have to pick words with so many sibilants in them? Shitwagon is so pleased he starts cooking you a breakfast that looks way bigger than you can finish and smells absolutely mouthwatering.

…Why didn’t he tell you that you put your shirt on backwards? You twist it around when he isn’t looking.

…Since when did you feel like caring enough again that you actually want to twist your shirt around the right way? Maybe it was the shock from _setting your mouth on fire holy shit you are keeping these_. You almost want to hug him. You definitely have to call him something better than Shitwagon.

You finish breakfast feeling stuffed to the ribs, full of energy, and confident that you can make up for lost time.


	48. Chapter 48

To no one’s surprise, Sollux is still working at his husktop with the helmet on when you see him after breakfast. As you finish soldering, screwing together and installing your operating system on Mituna’s shades, Sollux spends 90% of his morning in companionable silence beside you and the rest muttering curses to himself. He doesn’t look up when you shoot meaningful glances at him, and he scoffs at you when you dare to ask if everything is going okay. You can’t tell if he’s having fun or he’s pissed off, or having both emotions at the same time is a normal state of being for trolls, but his haughty excuse for teamwork is getting really stale.

By the time you’re ready to break for lunch, you’ve finished running preliminary tests on the shades. MP cautioned you not to let Sollux overdo it to the point where he forgets to eat and sleep again; you use your artistic license to interpret this as an excuse to loom beside him and read over his shoulder. “Alright I’m done with the hardware. Show me what you’ve got.”

Sollux hunches hilariously over his screen like a jealous eagle. “Fuck off, DR. I’m not finished yet.”

“Obviously. Have you considered that this might be because you’re a stubborn shitbrick who refuses to ask for help? It’s cute how you’re trying to claim sole custody of our brainchild after you were the one who asked me for a sweet pair of shades in the first place. And before you ask, because I see that look on your face, yes I _can_ write functional code in ATH, but for this system I specifically avoided it to discourage punks like you. Fork over the wriggler, Captor. Judge’s orders. You only get to see him on weekends.”

“Only if you stop spewing untranslatable Earth cultural references out of your face gash and expect me to understand what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Or I could take the easy way and casually slip a remark to MP that you’re still up. Then by the time I’m back from lunch she will have dragged your ass to bed and I can raid all your shit.”

Sollux finally complies with a rattling hiss. The instant he lifts the Helmsman helmet up past his eyes he’s glaring daggers and sparking threats at you. “Getting MP to do your dirty work for you? Low, Strider.”

“Are you implying that you’d rather have me serve your ass to you with my own two hands? It’s a deal, Captor, as soon as you steal a space ship big enough to host a proper sparring match.”

“We’ll see about that.” You can practically see the gears turning in his head as he sizes you up. He may have freaky eye lasers, a full head of height on you, and the ability to fucking _fly_ , but _you_ have an army of robots, solid muscles and a rocket powered skateboard. You’ve been itching for a real challenge since your escape to this planet. And if he thinks this is pitch flirting, let him. Sooner or later he’ll figure out that you don’t care enough to learn the difference from a regular exchange of insults between hatefriends.

Sollux steers the conversation back toward your project. “Let me see what you’ve done with the shades too.”

“Oh _now_ you’re interested.” You snipe in parting even as you are already handing them over.

Sollux narrows his eyes at you but he lets you have the last word. He goes quiet as soon as he tries them on, deeply absorbed in trying out the functionality of your handiwork. Alright, you’ll let him play with the shades for a little but then it’s really bedtime little mister. (Hah, little. You may be shorter than him but you are two years older.) You’re almost surprised he’s still turning his head to watch you as you head out the door to grab a bite to eat. You throw him a mock salute; he throws you the double middle finger, and somehow you both end up smiling a little. By the time you’re back from lunch he has already headed off to sleep without needing a second reminder.

Good. Now let’s if he managed to shit out anything coherent in that troll reverse all-nighter. You expect a tangled maze of spaghetti code with dead ends full of syntax errors and spelling mistakes. You get… the most encrypted, disturbingly logical, eye-wateringly complex Frankenstein-esque compilation of two programming languages you’re probably ever going to see in your life. It takes you a long time to wrap your head around it. Here the count of a loop is tied to the death of the wearer’s blood cells, there pixels of color are translated directly to visual signals, and elsewhere calls to subroutines written by you and by other trolls are intricately woven together like an exotic tapestry.

Whoever could figure out how to hack this shit deserves an award and an honorary PHD. Holy shit how did he _actually_ learn this fast? Two days ago he didn’t even know any English! You’re not going to let on that you’re impressed, fuck knows his ego is big enough already. Instead you’re going to leave a few choice comments comprising legitimate suggestions and trolling in equal parts. Gradually you run into a minefield of error flags, commented out sections, commented out key-smash filled swearing, and a blinking cursor. He clearly isn’t finished yet and this is clearly where he left off. Oho, now we’re getting to the good part.

//This looks like a good place to connect with Jade’s Dreambot consciousness transfer subroutine. We should show her and see what she thinks. 

//Fancy. I bet you a dollar it won’t compile.

//There is your problem.   
//You copied this part in twice.   
//No need to thank me.

//In case you missed it, that was a haiku. 

//Good point about translating machine language to organic chemical signals. I’m going to need your ideas on how to integrate the inorganic circuitry with biowire. This many require some trial and error.

//What the fuck is this loop waiting for, a drowning kitten?   
//A dead wriggler?   
//A virgin sacrifice?   
//FYI I know the perfect volcano for that.   
//This is why ~ATH is a bullshit programming language and you know it. 

You’re just going to leave that for him to find first thing in the evening.

***

“Strider, if you ever edit my code again I’m going to incinerate you.”

“You’re welcome.”


	49. Chapter 49

This is what troll teamwork looks like: insults, complaints and arguments on the surface, actually respecting and listening to each other (most of the time) underneath. You periodically huddle together over the husktop and shades in turn until hours later the code compiles flawlessly and you’ve figured out how to install tiny inorganic wire ports on a bio-chip the size of your thumb claw. It’s time to try on the shades again.

It isn’t going to matter for MT, but for you they’re kind of a pain in the ass to wear like this. The shades are opaque and they completely block everything but your peripheral vision. Spatial reasoning is easier if you just close your eyes and focus on the shape of your surroundings with your psionics.

“Fire in the hole,” Dirk drawls flatly.

You sidle up to him with your claw hovering menacingly over the power button. “Scared, DR? When _I_ blow up a machine I’ve done it on purpose.”

“Get the fuck away from me. I did not volunteer to be a secondhand guinea pig.”

“Ehehehe.” You let him slide, but only because it’s funny how he’s trying to nonchalantly slouch out of the way and failing to hide how tense he is. (And because he inadvertently slipped you a two pun.) He is just as invested in the success of this project as you are. Somehow his nerves are contagious. You feel a little flutter of uncertainty settle into the pit of your protein sac. It does not feel unwelcome. After all, life without uncertainty would be unbearably dull. Here goes nothing. You tap the power button.

There is text scrolling across your virtual field of vision. You see the loading screen. No errors or warnings… and there’s your desktop. You don’t even try to keep the excitement from creeping into your voice. “Here, look at my husktop screen for a second.” You minimize the text editor for your finished code and save a copy to MT’s backup server. As you run through a battery of tests and fire up the cameras, you show Dirk exactly the view you’re seeing on your husktop screen. This pair of shades beats the Helmsman helmet hands down. It’s lightweight and comfortable and it effortlessly connects with all of your devices. The bio-chip draws so little power from the psionic aura in front of your eyes that you can’t even feel it. It works. It fucking _works_! You were trying not to get your hopes up until you had a chance to thoroughly test all the functions, but the more you see the more miserably you fail. You give in to an ear-splitting grin of such magnitude it threatens to cramp your face. “DR, I _need_ a pair of these. Make me another.”

“Alright, but you owe me.”

You pass him the shades so he can have a look at them for himself and pull the husktop into your lap. “I’m already working on stealing our new ride. Check this out.” Compared with the mental gymnastics you just had to contort yourself through to come up with the operating system for MT’s shades, hacking into the local space port’s records is so laughably easy you could do it in your sleep. You have system administrator privileges in thirty seconds flat and security will be none the wiser until it’s too late. Your screen fills to bursting with details about the location, name, type, make, model, crew members, passengers and Helmsman’s blood color of every troll owned vessel that is expected to be on site within the next week. You wish you could free them all, but for now you will have to settle for picking the day when you think you’ll have the best chance of success.

“Hm.” Says Dirk. You’re pretty sure that means he’s impressed. Not like you needed another excuse to feel smug right now anyway. You let him poke around with the software for a bit, then when you’ve decide he’s had enough fun you summon MT to come and get his shades. Reaching out with your psionics, you locate him hanging around in the kitchen with Waggon and you tug on his sleeve.

***

“…Or you could have shouted down the stairs like a normal person.”

“Pfft. That’s boring. Here, try these on.”

“These are-” you blink as a catalogue of space faring vessels springs to life in front of your eyes. “Oooh shiny. Picking out a ship, are we? I like the Dice-troyer and the Bad Habit. Ooh, or how about the Gun Snipe?” 

“It figures you would be interested in the battleships first and the shades second, MT. Have you even looked at the camera function yet?”

“What? _Oh_.” It feels jarring to have visual signals coming to your think pan from where your eyes are actually supposed to be for the first time in millennia instead of some place outside of yourself. “Whoa.” You spend a long time staring at your hands and your clothes and slowly taking in the scenery around your body. Hold on, hold on, what you’re seeing with your virtual eyes actually matches your movements and the spatial orientation that you’re feeling with your psionics. It feels… unsettling. It feels… right. “Hi Dirk! Nice shirt, Sollux. Ehehehe this is going to take some getting used to.” You switch back to the space ships before trying to get the hang of hand-eye coordination again becomes too overwhelming. “Why did you hide the cameras behind four other windows if that’s what you wanted me to see in the first place?”

“Well, I did want you to see the ships too. I was thinking more along the lines of the Hull Crusher.”

“Really, Sollux? You want to steal a hulking siege vessel the size of a hivestem? Those things are slow and unwieldy as hell.”

“Only because _we_ haven’t been the ones flying them. Anyway, we’re going to need the space soon enough. Think about it, MT. There’s me, you, Dirk and all his robots, Jade, _her_ robots and her barkbeast lusus, Rose, MP, WV, Waggon, KK and TV, possibly some other prisoners on Cold as Globes V, whoever the Helmsman is on the Hull Crusher right now, a bunch of other Helmsmen as soon as we free them from the space port, and even more others who might join us in the future. Other Helmsmen could even dock with us in their ships.”

Hmm, he has a point. On the one hand, a siege vessel is an obvious target, and it’s so large that flying through the smallest dream bubbles is out of the question. Instead of taking a shortcut the whole ship could be torn into fragments that are scattered across opposite ends of the universe. On the other hand, siege vessels are damn near impenetrable and you’re really looking forward to all the company. It’s been too long since you could revel in having a big crowd of like minded revolutionaries all around you. “Alright Sollux, go for it, but you’d better not start whining when it’s your turn to handle takeoff.”


	50. Chapter 50

IMPERIAL SIEGE VESSEL HULL CRUSHER [HC] began trolling IMPERIAL NEAR ORBIT TROOP TRANSPORT THUNDERCLAP [TC]  on Hangar Terminal

HC: uuuuuuuuuuuugh

HC: b!-sweeply ma!ntenance procedures!!! ):F

TC: relaX.

TC: I knoW landinG boreS yoU immenselY buT theY wilL bE finisheD sooN.

HC: yeah, and then ! have to deal w!th fr!ct!ion!

HC: and weather!!

HC: and worst of all, grav!ty!!!

HC: th!s sucks ):F

HC: !’m go!ng to be recharg!ng the batter!es for a week after we take off!

HC: why can’t ! just stay !n space forever wh!le you do your th!ng!?

TC: it’S mucH safeR anD fasteR foR thE creW tO makE noN-emergencY externaL repairS withouT havinG tO gO oN A spacE walK.

HC: but ! don’t _need_ repa!rs!!

HC: remember that bomb f!ght w!th the rebels from the Antl!on cluster?

HC: ! may have looked l!ke a block of cultured da!ry from the outs!de for s!x per!grees, but my repa!r dro!ds f!xed up my !nnards just f!ne.

TC: gooD grieF, don’T geT mE starteD oN rebelS.

TC: I finD iT quitE upsettinG thE waY theY inevitablY forgeT abouT uS.

TC: I aM tired oF beinG thE collateraL damagE iN thE fighT foR thE sO calleD greateR gooD.

HC: hey, now !t’s your turn to ch!ll.

HC: !’ll keep you safe as long as you’re st!ll !n the double re!nforced hull of my hangar. C:F

HC: freshly ma!nta!ned, ! m!ght add!!

HC: l!ttle chance of collateral damage here!

TC: thanK goodnesS foR thaT.

TC: apropoS

TC: yoU knoW

TC: thaT timE aT thE antlioN clusteR,

TC: I waS reallY worrieD abouT yoU.

HC: heh, s!lly <>

TC: <>

IMPERIAL SIEGE VESSEL HULL CRUSHER [HC] stopped trolling IMPERIAL NEAR ORBIT TROOP TRANSPORT THUNDERCLAP [TC]  on Hangar Terminal.

***

ENCRYPTED CONNECTION [##] opened secure memo on board everyone 2wiitch two camera Loadiing Dock 2

IMPERIAL SIEGE VESSEL HULL CRUSHER [HC] joined secure memo everyone 2wiitch two camera Loadiing Dock 2

IMPERIAL NEAR ORBIT TROOP TRANSPORT THUNDERCLAP [TC] joined secure memo everyone 2wiitch two camera Loadiing Dock 2

PRIVATE FIGHTER VESSEL DICE-TROYER [DT] joined secure memo everyone 2wiitch two camera Loadiing Dock 2

PRIVATE FIGHTER VESSEL BAD HABIT [BH] joined secure memo everyone 2wiitch two camera Loadiing Dock 2

IMPERIAL BATTLESHIP GUN SNIPE [GS] joined secure memo everyone 2wiitch two camera Loadiing Dock 2

IMPERIAL FIGHTER VESSEL NEEDLE NOSE [NN] joined secure memo everyone 2wiitch two camera Loadiing Dock 2

SUBSTATION B [SB] joined secure memo everyone 2wiitch two camera Loadiing Dock 2

HC: aw man, ! j!nxed !t!!! D:F

NN: jiNNxed what?

DT: WHA7 7HE AC7UAL FUCK?

SB: holy 5hit!

SB: 5omebody i5 me55aging u5?

GS: [[we’ve been hacked!]]

HC: !!! o:F

TC: hmpH. speaK oF thE cullinG droneS.

SB: WH[o] [i]S TH[i]S?

BH: I DiDn’t Do it! 

SB: Y thynk Y myght cry

##: everybody 2hut your face ga2he2 for two 2econd2 and lii2ten

##: on my 2iignal, all of you wiill be dii2connected from your biiowiire2 and all the door2 on your re2pectiive 2hiip2 wiill be locked open for no more than fiive miinute2.

SB: ~~I l*ve y*u, y*u beautiful pers*n *3*~~ <3

TC: givE uS onE gooD reasoN whY shoulD wE trusT yoU.

##: ii don’t giive a 2hiit iif you tru2t me or not.

##: iif you actually want two 2tay a2 a battery for the re2t of your liife then fuck you, you de2erve iit.

##: all the re2t of you can get ready two run liike hell and joiin u2 on Hull Cru2her. 

TC: HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSs

##: or fuck off all by your2elve2, ii don’t care.

HC: why me? 

TC: don’T yoU darE hurT mY moiraiL!

DT: BECAUSE YOU’RE 7HE BIGGES7 SHIP, OBVIOUSLY.

##: @TC: ii’m doiing both of you a favor, nookblii2ter. get iit through your thiick 2ponge.

##: OH AND ONE MORE THIING

##: WHEN YOU E5CAPE, PLEA5E TRY NOT 2 KIILL ANYONE OKAY?

[##] closed memo.

***

Okay, you’ll bite. Fuming moirail or not, you’re curious to see what’s happening on camera Loading Dock 2, if for no other reason than the fact that you definitely aren’t supposed to have legitimate access to it, and it sure beats staring at repair droids touching up your paint job. 

You are treated to a nice view of a cute rustie enthusiastically trying to sell something to a pair of security trolls while a cargo pod quickly fills up with items behind them. Segments of an expensive apiculture mainframe, a pile of scrap metal, weapons, a few robots, clothing, food, barkbeast treats– the cargo itself would not be suspicious if not for the fact that it was all floating unattended into the cargo pod in a faint halo of red and blue light. The misdeed is over in a matter of seconds, and suddenly that cargo pod takes priority in your loading schedule like it actually belongs there. The loading droids pick up the cargo pod and scuttle away with it, heading toward the hanger you are stationed in. Thunder Clap may be furious and terrified, but you’re more excited than you’ve ever been in your whole life. 

IMPERIAL SIEGE VESSEL HULL CRUSHER [HC] began trolling IMPERIAL NEAR ORBIT TROOP TRANSPORT THUNDERCLAP [TC]  on Hangar Terminal

HC: just take the!r word for !t TC! trust me, ! have a really good feel!ng about th!s!!!

TC: buT

HC: no buts!

[HC] blocked [TC] 

HC: <>

***

“Would you ladies care to try my new Thai Spice Revenge Cycle cricket crisps? I’ve been told they’re insidiously delicious.” 

“Go away before I throw a spear through your chest, assblood.” 

You are a security guard for a boring spaceport in the middle of nowhere on a boring planet full of petty criminals, and you are _so glad_ you finally have something to do. “Seriously Seetah? You haven’t heard of the Auspice Crisps guy on Denizen Street?” 

“Unlike certain trolls I could name, I do not frequent areas that are unbefitting to my station.” 

_Please_ , you’re on the brown side of olive and she’s barely even teal. “You mean you stay at home fondling your globes with your horns all day, that’s how far up your waste chute your head is. Look around you and tell me there are any areas on this whole goddamned planet that you’re _not_ too snobby for. Have you even set foot outside your hive other than to come to work?” You ignore Seetah’s predictable sputtering response and turn to the Auspice Crisps guy instead. “Don’t mind her, she’s just cranky because we’re technically not supposed to eat on the job until we go on break. Trust me, people bend the rules all the time out here and nothing ever happens. Well, aside from the usual pickpocketing, smuggling and gambling.” And bribery for turning a blind eye to the above, which may or may not occasionally supplement your income. Life is good. 

“Tell you what Miss Tinstripe, I’ll give you a free sample, but only because you’re one of my best customers. I must warn you though, they’re very spicy.” 

“Pft. Maybe to a rustie like you.” When you hold out your hand he hooks you up with _entire bagful_. Awesome!! You grin widely and elbow your coworker in the ribs. “How about that, eh Seetah? It pays to be nice sometimes.” Seetah rolls her eyes and very suspiciously watches you eat. 

“Hey these are good!” 

Seetah shifts weight to her other foot, eyeing your bag with jealousy plain as moonlight all over her face. “It can’t be _that_ spicy if a lowblood like you can handle it.” 

“Heheheh bitch. If you think I’m gonna share you’ve got another thing coming.” 

“Now now, I don’t have a bag of Cinnamon Auspice Crisps on me so I’ll just have to give Miss Seetah her own bag. Fair’s fair, right?” 

“Oh, aren’t you a shameless flirt!” You tweak the street vendor’s ear with flavor-dusted fingers. 

Beside you, the slow, relentless crumbling away of Seetah’s dignity in the face of spicy deliciousness is a glorious sight to behold. She goes from picking at crickets one by one like her fingers are a pair of tweezers to digging in with her whole hand, stuffing her face and glaring at you like she’s daring you to comment. You can see the instant she’s overdone it when her eyes go huge and her face goes bright with color and beads of sweat; she only manages to hold out for a few seconds before she has to make a mad dash for the break room. This _needs_ to be recorded for posterity. Cackling wildly, you go tearing after her snapping a thousand blurry photos on your cell phone. 

***

That… actually worked? While you waste precious seconds staring slack-jawed after the guards in disbelief, Mituna sneaks up behind you, throws his arm around your shoulders and makes you jump about halfway into orbit. He also gives you a thumbs-up and an ear-splitting grin. He’s trying so hard not to laugh his entire body is quivering with it. Okay, thank god it wasn’t another guard. Just when you’re about to heave a sigh of relief, he starts merrily flying away after the cargo pod full of your belongings and he’s taking you with him. You are not ready to relinquish the force of gravity. You will never be ready. You are a hopeless bag of nerves. 

***

By the time you focus on Loading Dock 2 again, the rustblood and both security guards are nowhere to be seen. Then with absolutely no warning- no blip in the communication system or cameras, no spike or dip in power, your helmsblock breaker flips to battery power, your helmet goes dead and your biowires slither away out of sight. You are in maintenance mode and you are _awake_. This… this is _real_. It hurts too much to be a dream. The doors to the helmsblock slide open, and you can see hatches in the entire hallway to the aft side of the ship following suit one after another. You can hear the spaceport’s hangar doors sliding open with a deep metallic rumble that penetrates all the way through the depths of your hull. 

Tearing your helmet off like a nasty bandage, you dash to your helmsblock command terminal and struggle to remember how to physically use it with your hands. Your voice wavers as you open a communication link with your hangar bay. “Thunder, Thunder! Do you copy? If you can hear me, come here and help me hold up the ship!” 

“Roger Hull Crusher, I’m on my way.” Your moirail sounds rather shaken himself, but his answer makes you feel giddy with relief.

Your best chance to hold out long enough not to get caught by security is to fly up out of the maintenance scaffolding where only Imperial Drones and the other Helmsmen will be able to reach you. You have no idea how to work any of the controls without any connection with your helmet and no time to learn, but you’re too afraid of it sinking its tendrils back into you to try and spark it back to life. This means you have no choice but to lift the ship without access to your battery power. Five minutes. That’s all you have to manage. You can do this. 

You sit cross legged as far away from your column as possible without leaving the familiarity of your helmsblock. Scouring all of your chambers and corridors with a great sweep of power, you toss all of the remaining Imperial troops off the ship through all of your airlocks, hatches and garbage chutes like the filth they are. One deep breath later, you reach out with your power across the entire breadth of the ship and _heave_ , scattering maintenance droids left and right from the outer surface of your hull. You lurch clumsily upward, muscles already trembling with effort. An orange flood of your moirail’s power makes it easier before he even reaches you. He flies into the helmsblock at the speed of a rifle blast, skids to a halt in a minor shock wave of air and regally seats himself at your side. You hold his hand and smile. Chaos erupts all around you as the electrical substation disconnects and throws the entire spaceport into darkness. You keep holding on as helmsman and substation trolls begin to fly in through the gaping maw of your hangar door, each one adding their power to yours by increments. They fend off the flying Imperial Drones at all of your openings with impenetrable psionic barriers, lighting the way for still others. Even with their help you’re sweating bullets, your head is starting to swim, and you’re no longer sure if you’re dripping blood from your eyes or fresh paint from your hull. You’ll go down smiling even if you have to push yourself until your psionics burn out. 

Then with two final _impressive_ sparks of power coming in through your hangar door, the entire ship is suddenly so feather-light you have to blink spots away for several seconds before you realize you haven’t actually fainted. That has to be the most psionic force you’ve ever encountered, maybe even enough to rival the Empress, and you’re about to meet the source. All of the freed Helmsmen gather around you in your helmsblock as if there is nowhere else to go, followed by a handful of aliens and your new favorite non-psionic rustie who looks like he feels completely out of his depth. 

The two most powerful psionic trolls are the last to enter the scene, lighting up everything around them in a blaze of red and blue. Your eyes adjust to a twin pair of horns on the _oldest_ goldblood you’ve ever seen. He squeezes right into the middle of the crowd with a huge smile on his face like he’s lived there all his life. “Goddamn, this is so much more badass than stealing a boat!” 

His even stronger partner in crime stands out of reach in the hallway. The second powerful psionic finally enters the helmsblock with great reluctance just as the doors are about to close on him, and you can see that he is much younger, with a pair of nearly identical pair of doubled horns. _Wow_. He shies away from all the attention, gold dusting his cheeks. 

“Get some rest, kids!” the older psionic lisps at everyone. “Obviously except for you, Sollux, ehehehe. We’ll take it from here. There will be time for introductions later.” 

“Greeeeeeeeat!” You chime in, slurring like a loud drunk. “This is _myyyyy_ ship and I call, I call dibs on the CAPTAIN’S recuperacoon!!!” None of the other tired, bleeding Helmsmen argue as they scatter across your barracks. Thunder is hardly steadier than you are, but he still escorts you all the way to your new quarters. You are so, so happy you finally get to see and touch him in person. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE have an extra long chapter! It didn't feel complete in two separate pieces.
> 
> FFFFFFFFFFormatting. It took forever to get this chapter to show up correctly with all the html.
> 
> Sollux is not exactly a charismatic rebel leader. xD;
> 
> BY THE WAY here's Shitwagon.
> 
> [](http://imgur.com/by53yBm)  
> 


	51. Chapter 51

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I drew the layout of the Imperial Siege Vessel Hull Crusher. It was helpful for me to visualize and describe the ship so it should be helpful for you reading it as well. I omitted certain details like the exact location of all the respiteblocks and the relative sizes of each room, but it's safe to assume that the captain's respiteblock is the largest. I hope you guys can read my messy handwriting. >.>
> 
> [Side View](http://i.imgur.com/FABOy17.jpg)   
>  [Top View](http://i.imgur.com/yFKEQSm.jpg)   
>  [Lower Level](http://i.imgur.com/IRxHBSt.jpg)   
>  [Second Level](http://i.imgur.com/W6EnovZ.jpg)   
>  [Third Level](http://i.imgur.com/wIMG763.jpg)   
>  [Fourth Level](http://i.imgur.com/VYRPbNq.jpg)   
>  [Top Level](http://i.imgur.com/J4r9mdu.jpg)
> 
> None of these drawings are to scale, but just for perspective the gym is the size of a football field, i.e. each segment of the Hull Crusher is about 100 m wide. It would take about 10-15 minutes to walk all the way from one end of the ship to the other.  
> I put way too much thought into this. xD;
> 
> Edit: Oops I forgot to add the Mediculler's office. *edits third floor diagram*
> 
> \-------------

The Helmsblock empties out, leaving nobody but you, MT, Waggon, the farmhands and Jade’s lusus. “We need to get the fuck off of this planet. The rest of you should at least find a place to sit or something.”

“I hate this part,” Waggon grumbles.

 _Everyone_ hates this part, but you’ve already promised MT you’re not going to complain, especially not while he’s managing half of the heavy lifting. You avoid looking at anyone as you take a deep breath, brace yourself and gingerly step into the helmscolumn. You sink waist deep into a nest of idle biowires. _Disgusting._ You pull on Hull Crusher’s helmet and try to ignore the way the cold, clammy biowires soak through your pants with slime.

Waggon gapes at you like everything he ever groused about in his life just died in his throat. He must have never seen a helmsblock in operation before. The same goes for Dirk, who grimaces and mutters something English that can only be a swearword. Your mood is instantly elevated by the look on his face. “Ever touched a biowire before, Strider?” You coo at him in your most obnoxious, syrupy voice, waving a tentacle at him in an obscene gesture. “Go on, you know you want to. I double dare you.”

“Eugh, no fucking thank you.” Dirk’s frown deepens into a gratifying scowl, Waggon looks vaguely scandalized, Jade is giggling, and you just made Mituna laugh so hard you have to pick up his half of the ship until he can breathe again. Fucking heavy, but worth it. It’s a good thing you’re so attuned to his psionics or else accidentally letting the ship drop for a fraction of a second would have ruined the joke.

“Suit yourself. The Bridge is down the hall opposite the way we came in. Keep going right or left past the elevators.”

Dirk flips you off, trying to casually hasten out of the helmsblock.

“They’re not even active, you big wriggler!” You call after him as the doors slide closed.

Mituna gradually recovers between fits and starts of snickering. “I didn’t think you two would actually get along so well this soon.”

“Blame the shades. Now come here and help me get this thing out of orbit so I can hook up your server and switch back to battery power.”

“’Kay.” MT flops onto his back beside the helmscolumn, long legs sprawled in front of him and his arms folded behind his head. “Is everyone settled?”

You check everyone’s position in the Hull Crusher’s cameras. “Yeah.”

“Alright then. Let’s be motherfucking helm grade.”

You angle the ship to maximize the amount of lift you get from its fin shaped wings and give it a hard push forward. In spite of the fact that MT is with you every step of the way, the siege vessel is still a bitch to handle. It was built for utility rather than comfort. Its menacing, durable, completely non-aerodynamic design would be a non-issue in space where it’s meant to stay for perigrees at a time; accelerating through the atmosphere of Swindler’s Mark it makes for one hell of a bumpy ride. Mituna sticks himself firmly to the floor and grabs hold of his shades to keep them from flying away. You cushion the stolen cargo pod that contains his server frames with a spare tendril of psionics and hang onto a thick tendril above your head. Both of you make an unspoken decision to keep the speed subsonic until there aren’t enough molecules left around you to create a bone-rattling shockwave.

When the atmosphere thins to the point where wings become useless, you angle straight up and push even harder. You feel momentarily disoriented as the ship’s artificial gravity turns on and things that should be falling sideways from the force you’re applying continue to fall downward instead. From then on your fight against the planet’s gravity morphs into pure acceleration so gradually you don’t even notice you’ve broken free until MT’s power is tugging at yours to change directions. You make a few course corrections, keep pushing, and before you know it you’re barreling out of the solar system at light speed. Thank fuck the hard part is over. You are so sweaty and gross right now.

“Hey MT, can you do me a favor and take over steering while I hook up your autopilot to the Hull Crusher’s server?”

Mituna sits up, stretches and yawns. “The sooner we get away from manual control the better.”

“Are you tired?”

“I might’ve been contemplating a nap, but then again when aren’t I?”

“No, you go ahead. This is going to take a while.” All you have to do without his help is multitask between setting up the server and occasionally steering the ship in the right direction. You’re good at multitasking.

“Alright, wake me up if you need me. Don’t let MP catch you wearing out your sun cloak.”

“It’s not even close to dawn yet MT.”

“You know what I _meant_. Anyway who cares, we’re on cycle time now.”

You shoo your Ancestor away, take off HC’s helmet and get down to business. With the course you just set you shouldn’t need to make any adjustments for at least half an hour, which leaves you free to open up your stolen cargo pod in the cargo bay to check on Mituna’s bees. They seem rather shaken by the rough flight, crawling in agitated patterns against the glass, but you don’t notice any casualties. You calm the bees and gently float the servers over to the greenhouse area you noticed on the ship’s map of the second floor. They perk right up and start dancing in figure eights as soon as they see the all the flowering plants. So far so good.

Now let’s see how they’ll get along with HC’s bees. You return to the helmsblock, enter the server room, set down the apiary frames inside and watch what happens. A few minutes later when you’re sure you don’t smell any immediate hostility from members of both colonies meeting on opposite sides of the glass, you leave them there to get better acquainted with each other while you go and check on MT’s navigation program. The bees still haven’t started waging war on each other when you come back, so you open up the glass of MT’s apiary frames. You keep an occasional eye on them while you start clamping the apiary frames into place and wiring them together.

After that’s done, you split the rest of your time between navigating and writing code to make MT’s autopilot program work with the siege vessel’s unfamiliar controls, switching between two helmets. By the time the ship computer is fully integrated with MT’s server and you can _finally_ switch navigation back to battery power, you’re so exhausted you have to resist the temptation to pass out right there in the helmsblock on a meager pile of tools and wiring. You shower in your slimy clothes and pick out a respiteblock in the back corner of the upper level of the siege vessel, nice and far from everybody else. You’ve left a trail of water droplets all over the hallway. Hopefully nobody will be around to care before it dries.


	52. Chapter 52

If you hadn’t already survived the shock of seeing Mituna and Sollux for the first time, you might have actually fainted after being crammed into one small room with more psionic trolls than you’ve ever seen in your whole life. You are shaken and you still can’t believe you actually pulled off something as blatantly illegal as stealing an imperial siege vessel. Fortunately, unlike the hive you left behind on Swindler’s Mark, there are plenty of recuperacoons here to soothe your nerves.

***

The next evening you realize you have a whole lot of new customers to cook for, and that cheers you right up. You head straight for the kitchen, eager to see what it has in store for you. Evidently you’re not the only one with the same idea, because WV and Jade fall into step with you along the way (they’re also interested in the kitchen and the garden), soon followed by Dirk, Mituna and whichever new ex-helmsmen are awake (they’re hungry), and MP, chasing after the new ex-helmsmen brandishing a roll of bandages and a bottle of disinfectant in her hands.

Here is what you find:

High quality induction burners that change to any set temperature within seconds.  
Countertops that go on for miles.  
More appliances than you even know how to use.  
Maintenance droids to do all the cleaning for you.  
A walk-in pantry, fridge _and_ freezer, well stocked with far more basic ingredients than the number of trolls currently on this ship can possibly use.  
A brief stroll right into the siege vessel’s massive grub farm.

This.  
This is.  
This is some kind of dream.  
This is the _sexiest kitchen you’ve ever seen_ , the kind you never would have been able to pay for if you spent your whole _life_ saving up your meager rustblood savings, and you can use it whenever you want _for free_.

“Holy shit,” you whisper reverently to yourself. “Stealing does pay off. Shay was right all along, damn her.” And there’s no way you could have ever pulled this off by yourself. You are now very glad you ended up on the side that has a robot army, a _Helmsman_ army, _and_ the thick reinforced walls of a siege vessel at its disposal. You have chosen well.

Mituna’s anecdote has never felt so relevant. If you’re going to be fucked when they catch you anyway, you might as well go down in _style_. You’re going to make a feast tonight.

Yeah, yeah MP, okay fine, maybe a couple nights from now instead. You can’t just take your new customers from half-starved to satiated all at once or they’re going to pull a stomach muscle or something and it won’t be pretty. Until then they’ll just have to settle for the best damned soup you can boil.

Dirk surveys the spotless room with a finger on his chin. “You know what this kitchen needs?”

“Fuck you, Strider, what could possibly be missing from this perfect kitchen?”

“Shitty fridge art.”

“Hell yeah! Can I help?” Mituna looks like he would bounce up and down if he wasn’t already floating in the air.

“I’ll bring the crayons.”

“Fine, as long as you don’t try to put your goddamned swords in the thermal hull again. That also goes for the freezer _and_ the fucking pantry, Strider. I swear to Glb’golyb, I will put you in my soup.”

“Heh. I love how you still can’t take a joke.”

For the record, MP didn’t think that one was funny either.

***

Aw hell, this is what happens when you’re up late and you’re the last one to lurch out of your recuperacoon. The entire kitchen is crowded with people and they’re all so damned _social_ they haven’t fucked off to the mess hall where there are actual seating areas and tables to eat off of. Worse, not only have you never actually said a word to them in person before, but the first words you _did_ say to them were pretty rude online. You’re such an asshole. You haven’t even told them you’re going to a shitty ice planet in the middle of nowhere, you’re about to face a high probability of a mind scourge attack, and it’s all because you need to rescue two mutants who you hope to god are still alive. What the fuck are you supposed to tell them? Inevitably they notice you and you become the center of attention. Are you hungry enough to deal with this? Yeah, you actually _are_ that hungry. Fuck. You brace yourself and allow the crowd to swallow you up.

“Hey, Sollux, look! You’re going to be on the thermal hull. Congratulations!”

“What.” It’s too early for this. You blink, momentarily sidetracked as you notice all the crayons and paper scattered across the countertop. MT, Dirk and some of the new ex-Helmsmen who really don’t take themselves seriously either are all standing or floating cross-legged beside the counter, industriously doodling and coloring in bright colors with nearly forgotten bowls of soup floating beside their heads. Clearly the actual food didn’t fit on the counter. MT has drawn you and himself in shades, walking away from a red and blue explosion like the special effects in an action movie.

Hull Crusher has drawn herself sitting on the back of her horn beetle lusus. WV, Dirk and two rustbloods you don’t recognize are working on a large and painstakingly detailed drawing of a city complete with tiny townspeople, stretching across several pages of paper that are all taped together. How that one will possibly fit on the thermal hull is beyond you. But more importantly, doesn’t it bother anyone that it’s too crowded here and there aren’t any chairs? “Why don’t you guys go to the dining hall where you can actually sit?” 

“That’s what *I* tried to tell them,” Waggon sighs, handing you a steaming bowl of large, tender chunks of meat swimming in broth, without even being asked. (Hell yeah, you’re probably going to come back for seconds.) Being surrounded by casual displays of psionics doesn’t even phase him anymore; he’s long since gone straight past shock into exasperation.

There’s something sharper than usual about the grin MT gives you. “We were waiting for you! I know you Sollux. If we were all in the dining room you would have just grabbed something to eat and holed yourself away in your respiteblock.” He’s got you there. “You have to meet everyone! Sollux, meet Hull Crusher.” You already knew that from last night, but this is your first chance to interact outside of a crowd of excited ex-helmsmen. A tall, bulky oliveblood with thick, relatively short horns, she is the largest, most high-blooded troll on the ship and acts absolutely nothing like it. She seems overjoyed to see you and instantly scoops you up off the ground. Her brief, warm hug is probably the only crushing thing about her. You are left feeling vaguely embarrassed and slightly winded.

“The broody guy trying to keep an eye on her without getting cooties from our crayons is her moirail Thunderclap,” Mituna continues, herding you along. “Those two painting the town red are Baseload and Standby from Substation B. The one trying to eat and draw at the same time is Switchgear, also from Substation B, and the one with the sweet new flame decal paper sailboat hat with the number seven written all over it is Dice Troyer. Everyone else is eating breakfast in the dining hall, and if there’s anyone missing it’s because MP dragged them off to the med bay to get bandaged up.”

And then when MT inevitably sweeps you into the dining hall with the others pouring in after you with drawings and crayons in hand, you are formally introduced in rapid succession to Bad Habit, Needle Nose, Gun Snipe, and seven more rustbloods from Substation B, outnumbering the number of helmsmen on the ship: Signal, Relay, Spike, Fuse, Prime, Diode and Cycle. No wonder there were so many different typing quirks coming in from that channel. In short, there are too fucking many people here. It’s all a bit much to take in. You find it strange that the helmsmen and substation trolls alike unanimously decided to keep their designations as their adult titles. Wouldn’t they hate the constant reminder of their enslavement? Apparently they are so used to their designations it would feel strange to be called anything else, and they wear the designations as a sort of badge of honor for all the suffering they went through.

All eyes are on you and MT, and you feel like the odd one out. You’re the youngest one here; you don’t even _have_ an adult title. You sit at the middle of the long table eating your soup, making a shaky effort to be sociable, but the commotion just won’t die down while the obvious question of which ship you came from hangs in the air. You let Mituna tell it from the beginning, because his story goes back much farther than yours.

“Hey guys, I don’t really care if you call me Mituna Captor or MT or the Psiioniic, because we’re all friends, right? Just as long as you don’t start calling me the Battleship Condescension, no way in hell. If you’re going to start calling me by a ship title like one of the cool kids it had better be the First Ship. That leaky piece of driftwood with sails is where my blood pusher has lived since before starships were invented. It’s where I used to spread the message that every troll- that includes you- should be given an equal opportunity to live their lives to the fullest in peace, regardless of hemocaste or psychic abilites. And before you ask, my captain wasn’t a seadweller. He wasn’t a lowblood either. He was off the spectrum, cherry red, and the best friend I ever had. If that bothers you after being given the chance to walk on free legs again, come and see me in my respiteblock and we will have a very long chat.”

Mituna stops for a meaningful pause, looking every member of his audience in the eye to see if they’re still with him. You find it slightly encouraging that no one has stormed away in outrage yet. Satisfied, he continues his story. “You can imagine our message didn’t go over with the Empire very well. We made it pretty far before we got our asses handed to us. I ended up as one of the first Helmsmen in the fleet as punishment, and the Sea Bitch liked using me as a battery so much she extended my life for more than a million sweeps. Then to add insult to injury she put my Descendant into service next to me. I had given up on escaping a long, long time ago, but this is where Sollux and his badass hacking skills come in. He found a way to make us look dead to the biowires and get the hell off the ship, and after that he made breaking all of you out of your helmscolumns look easy, all because he hated the idea that the basis for the Empire’s entire power system is leaching power from enslaved trolls like ourselves.”

“You know that’s not the whole truth, MT.” You stand up and steel yourself. This is important. “My motives for freeing all of you weren’t entirely altruistic. Back on Alternia, I knew I was fucked from the beginning. I tried to escape into the desert with my moirail and my friend- who both turned out to be mutants- and the prison ship dumped them on Cold as Globes V. MT and I landed on Swindler’s Mark because I needed a proper ship, not just a shitty escape pod. I have to try and save them, or at least find out if they’re still alive.” You sink back into your seat. “Some asshole detachment of the Fleet is probably already sitting there waiting for us.” You put your head down, posture sagging, and mumble into your folded arms. “I… fuck, I’m sorry for dragging you all into this.”

The commotion starts up again with several trolls trying to talk over each other. You are so absorbed in feeling like an asshole that you hardly notice Hull Crusher raising her voice above every sound of dissent, scolding any troll who dares to think they would have even made it this far without you. It isn’t until you feel a sharp jab to your ribs that your downward spiral of misery temporarily stalls in place. You look up, brows furrowed, to see Dirk frowning at you in all seriousness. The crayons are long gone. “Nobody like a quitter, Captor. You’d better not give up before we’ve even started on our anti mind scourge shades. Hurry up and finish your breakfast so we can get to work.”

The logical part of you tells you he’s right. The depressed part of you needs a lot more nagging, a bag of Thai spice crickets, and possibly a nap, far, far from everyone else on this ship. This is going to be a difficult night.


	53. Chapter 53

Well _that_ could have gone better. Even among those ex-helmsmen who were already ready to accept the company of mutants, most of them did not appreciate having Sollux drop them so quickly from party mode back into (literally) cold reality. Quite frankly you’re one of them. You get that he’s feeling guilty, insecure and overwhelmed by all the attention, but that doesn’t excuse him from dropping a bombshell and leaving you to pick up all the pieces. Of course you’ll clean up after him, just this once, as a favor. Later you need to have a word with him. You’re a fossil, damn it. There’s only so much time left before you won’t be around to use as a leadership crutch anymore. Not for the first time, you feel the aching hole in your life where Kankri should be. It would be so easy to hide behind him and save all of your offensiveness for cracking jokes.

The argument starts to die down, but only because people are starting to leave, grumbling along the way. “No, listen.” You physically stop them with just enough psionics to catch their attention, not enough to keep them from breaking free if they really wanted to. “I didn’t want to have to force the issue, but we clearly have to reschedule that long chat in my respite block to right here and right now. Don’t pretend you didn’t already know they were going to send the big guns after us. Like it or not, if you’re over the age of eight sweeps, you have psionics and you don’t have fins on your face, that means you’re either a slave or a rebel. Have you already forgotten that all of you chose to be here? You could have just as easily run off somewhere else on your own after we freed you. Would that have made you feel any safer? Anyone? Show of hands.” You are met with sullen silence. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

You sigh. No one is happy, but at least the tension is dissipating. “Okay, on to the second point. We’re in space. We’re stuck with each other. The more time we waste fighting over blood castes, mutations and aliens, the less time we’ll have to figure out how to avoid getting caught. We all have different talents, even if we don’t know what they are yet. The more we learn about each other and the more numbers we get on our side, the better odds we have.”

“And one last thing. Life is short. For fuck’s sake, _enjoy yourselves_. This could be the only chance you get. Have a little fun. Do something you find meaningful. Yeah, we can’t pretend we won’t eventually go up in flames like everybody else who ever crossed Her Imperious Pain in the Ass, but what’s the point of being free if your think pan is still trapped in fear?”

***

“Sollux. Bro. I’ve been timing you. You’ve literally been staring blankly at your screen for the past fifteen minutes without typing anything. Get up. It’s time for a break.”

Sollux makes a noncommittal noise, doesn’t look at you and doesn’t move. In the past couple of hours, you and Jade managed to draft up some ideas while Bec dozes on his side in the corner of the room, but your new troll friend has been drifting in and out of focus all morning. In his sharper moments he manages to write a few pages of mostly good code with a few careless errors, then, irritable and frustrated by his own lack of progress, he gets pissy at both of you and Jade has to smack him upside the head until he behaves. He apologizes, he goes quiet, then he slides into some sort of bored, uninspired fog and his writing dries up completely for minutes at a time. These lapses seem to last longer and longer. He becomes apathetic and unresponsive, and he’s really starting to freak you out.

“Fuck it.” You get up, close his laptop, confiscate his shades and heft him up onto his feet. “Hey Jade, didn’t you say you wanted to take another look at the garden? I think this asshole needs a change of scenery.”

“Yeah!! Let’s play Frisbee with Bec. I’ll go get it from the cargo bay.” Bec springs to his feet and starts wagging his tail instantly.

“Sure. Meet you in the garden in a bit.” Sollux lets you drag him all the way there with little more than a sigh of resignation while Bec happily bounds off after Jade.

The garden consists of a grid of small plots of vegetables separated by walking paths. Some of the plots look deceptively empty, but you know Jade has already started planting in them with all kinds of seeds smuggled from Earth. Along the walls, the garden plots are surrounded by low fenced in corrals of various breeds of grubs, all of them fat, lazy and spoiled. The grubs follow you with a hungry gaze as you walk into the room. You suspect that since the uproar of stealing this ship, nobody has sorted out the duty of feeding them yet. Ah, they’ll be fine. From the little you know about grub farming you remember they’re cold blooded and you only really need to feed them once a week like snakes.

The center of the room houses a miniature orchard with fruit trees growing up to the second floor, encircled by a second floor balcony which nurtures racks of seedlings and young plants. Right now the lighting timer is on the night cycle, bathing the scenery in the soft pinks and greens of the artificial moon spectrum, just like the rest of the ship and every other piece of Alternian architecture you’ve ever set foot in. You’ve been obstinately keeping your shades on in spite of this for such a long time that Jade doesn’t even roll her eyes at you anymore.

When she returns a few minutes later with Bec and his Frisbee, you set up camp in the open spaces between the trees of the orchard and start casually tossing it back and forth to each other. Bec always wins at Monkey in the Middle. That monster dog can jump ridiculously high. Sollux *should* be able to cheat and nab the Frisbee right out of the air with his freaky mind powers, but you can’t get him to care enough to even try to grab it unless you toss it right into his face. It sucks the energy out of you just looking at him. You eventually give up and sit down with your back against a tree. Jade holds out for a few minutes longer before she joins you at the next tree over. Neither of you says anything.

Bec fetches the Frisbee, drops it at Sollux’s feet and whines. He nudges Sollux’s leg with his nose and looks up with a low wagging tail and imploring eyes. No one can resist the puppy dog eyes, right? Sollux stares at Bec for several seconds. Then he crouches down, and instead of making any move to pick up the Frisbee, he slowly reaches for the scruff at Bec’s neck and pulls the dog into a hug. Bec rests his large, square head on Sollux’s shoulder. You look away feeling both awkward and relieved.


	54. Chapter 54

This has been another unpleasant example of how much more difficult it feels to claw your way from the bottom of a depressive episode back into functionality without Karkat and his infinite well of long-suffering patience. You can still manage, but it’s so _tedious_. As soon as the numbness fades and leaves behind an ache, you know you’ve already won half the battle. You _need_ that ache. It reminds you you’re still alive and fighting. It gives you something to focus on, something to analyze, a problem to solve. Why are you hurting? What are the root causes? Where should you concentrate your energy?

Your goal returns to sharp focus, and the ache becomes a stepping stone. Hurt is readily compressed to anger. Anger is _easy_. There are so many choices for getting rid of it, like breaking shit with your psionics, punching the hell out of a video game character, or in this case, coding an anti mind-scourge device for the express purpose of fucking up the Empire. All of your fears and frustrations become your weapon. If it weren’t for the miraculous ability of your shades to keep up with your train of thought, you’d be typing like you’re trying to set your keys on fire. You immerse yourself in the strange, illogical world of dreams and the parallels between troll and human consciousness. This kind of challenge is the shit you live for.

Over the course of several interruptions ranging from meetings with the other Helmsmen to figure out who’s driving, who’s charging the batteries and when, managing the lesser fluctuations in your mood, remembering to actually eat sleep and take care of yourself, being fussed over by MP, listening to another one of MT’s anecdotes, checking on the bees and finally getting around to throwing a ball for Bec, you eventually manage to work out a routine.

There’s one more part of your routine that’s worth mentioning, one that involves what it rapidly becoming your least favorite area on the ship. Sometimes it starts with the words “Rise and shine, slacker. I’m not letting you sleep in just because it was your turn to recharge the ship last night.” Or you’ll be trying to finish a stubborn subroutine, when he suddenly decides you’ve been working for too long and says: “Think fast, Captor.” Or, without any warning at all, Dirk will get the drop on you when you’re minding your own business walking down a hallway somewhere. You inevitably end up in the gym with either weapons or weights in your hands, and you’re never allowed to leave until you feel half dead from exhaustion. Why did you agree to being Dirk’s sparring partner again?

Oh, right. It was because you thought you could kick his ass. Here’s how _that_ went down the first time:

\---

Dirk gets the most _annoying_ little smirk on his face when you try to end the fight before it even starts by lifting right him off his rocket powered skateboard, and it just sucks up your power like a black hole. “You’re _shitting_ me. When did you have time to fabricate anti-psionic gear with the psitanium conduits from that escape pod we stole?”

“Hey, you cheat, I cheat. Thanks again, by the way. Hurry up and choose your weapon.”

You grab a set of blunted training shuriken from the weapon rack. Dirk predictably arms himself with a katana. You make your way into the gym where there is plenty of space to fly in all three dimensions. There isn’t really a formal cue to start, but before you know it he’s charging at you and you’re chucking the whole set at him like a swarm of bees. Dirk dodges most of them with all kinds of flips in the air and deflects the rest with his sword. You keep darting out of his range and aiming the scattered throwing stars right back at him. For the longest time you are at an impasse, neither of you managing to land a hit.

Then Dirk makes a subtle switch in tactics. You barely notice what he’s doing until several tries later he manages to deflect one of your throwing stars near the hilt of his katana, switches his sword to one hand and reaches out and snatches the falling weapon out of the air with one gloved hand. He stows it away in a pocket where the psitanium prevents you from getting it back. Not bad for a guy without psionics, but you still have twenty one of them left. You’re going to have to watch him more closely to snatch the deflected stars out of his reach before he can pull that trick on you again.

Only it isn’t that easy to keep close track of the trajectory of twenty one projectiles and Dirk’s sword all at once. The longer the fight goes on, the more your concentration begins to lapse. Come on, there’s no way Dirk isn’t starting to get tired too by now. You need to end this quickly before he wears you out. You see your opening as he lunges for a stray star. Taking the risk of getting too close you dart around behind him and aim an elbow at the small of his back, trying to knock him off his skateboard. Dirk has sharp reflexes and he’s faster than you. Abandoning the throwing stars he grabs for you instead, and before you realize what happened you’re slammed up against a metal wall, breathless and losing altitude as Dirk’s skateboard absorbs part of the power you’ve been using to keep yourself aloft. You’re dropping out of control and for one gut-wrenching second your mind is completely blank with terror, blood pusher in your throat and veins coursing with adrenaline. Suddenly you’ve jolted to a halt; Dirk has caught you by the arm. He smiles at you as you dangle there like an idiot. “I think we can safely say I’ve won this round. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Holy _shit_ , you’re still too rattled to answer. All you can do is gape at him like an idiot until the panic recedes. You belatedly realize that if he let you fall far enough that you were out of range of the psitanium’s sphere of influence, you could have easily broken your fall under your own power again. You look away, flushed mustard yellow and breathing hard. Stupid, stupid _stupid_! You almost _had_ him!

“We need to work on your close range moves. Same time, same place tomorrow. Grab a katana.”

That’s two for two: Dirk can keep up with your code _and_ kick your ass in a fair fight. Okay, _maybe_ if he were a troll, that could conceivably make him incredibly attractive. You tell the leering Mituna in your mind’s eye to shut up even though he hasn’t actually said anything. If anyone asks, you’re not planning your revenge, you’re _strategizing_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the end I decided that I'm going to post the ideas I had for this chapter as two chapters instead. Just getting back into this after the holidays and I need to stew on the second half a bit longer for the words to come out.


	55. Chapter 55

This is good progress, you try to remind yourself. You’re more than halfway back to the prison ship’s landing site, having already set up caches of food at four landmarks on your way here. Yet the farther you make it from the cave you were using as your base camp, the harder it gets to stay positive. You feel guilty about every step forward you’ve made.

There’s the wooly beast you managed to kill for your second pelt, large enough to fit over your wings without making them cramped.

There are the smaller pelts from a couple of rock hopping avian beasts that both of you have started to use as makeshift packs for carrying your frozen food supplies.

There’s the fact that you can’t look at the carcasses and you have to make Karkat do all the work of butchery and trying to figure out how to make use of all the leftover bones, shells and skins.

There is every bite you’ve eaten on this planet.

And where you felt guilty about the slow, awkward pace of your walking before, now you feel guilty about hitchhiking on the think pans of an entire gullible pack of wooly beasts to use them as mounts and beasts of burden, carrying their enemies and the remains of their own brethren on their backs.

You peer over at Karkat on the back of the wooly beast next to you, hunched into his pelt with his face downturned against a blast of frigid wind. From this angle you can’t see much more of his face than his nose, cheeks and a scowl of grim determination, all flushed red from the cold. A few strands of his wild hair are sticking out from the part of the pelt he is using as a hood; these and the hood itself are covered in a thin layer of stray snowflakes, waiting in vain to melt. He looks so small and pretty and your heart breaks for him; you wish there was more you could do. Then Karkat notices your gaze and reaches for your hand with a tiny smile. For one pleasant moment you feel very warm all the way to the pit of your protein chute.

All at once the amount of light filtering through the cloud cover and falling snow dims drastically. What is this, a lunar eclipse? It can’t be, those take hours. A large migrating flock of flying animals somewhere in the troposphere? No, you would have felt the faint distance of their collective presence. As you blink upward in confusion, your eyes catch a glimmer of movement through a small break in the clouds and you realize that in a horrible way your second guess wasn’t actually that far off the mark.

That was the sleek cobalt underbelly of an imperial mind scourge capture vessel. There could be _thousands_ of them.

You give Karkat’s hand a squeeze, urgent and frightened. In return, his grip tightens and stays that way; your courage, your anchor.

“They um… do you think…” You have to suppress the ridiculous urge to whisper to make yourself heard over the wind.

“An entire _fleet_ of mindfuck ships after _our_ sorry mutant asses? Even _with_ the Imperial My Bulge Is Longer Than Yours Overkill Factor that would be pointless bullshit.”

“Oh.” He’s right. You’re still nervous, but now you also feel silly and …disappointed? That emotion gives you pause for a long moment. Have your weeks of absence from the company of other trolls- even those who you simply passed by without exchanging a word, even those who were cruel- already seeped so deep into your soul that you could warm to the company of a fleet of mind scourges? “Karkat? I’m really lonely.”

The understanding in Karkat’s gaze is like that of a besieged infantryman sharing his last crumb of grub loaf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 500+ kudos! I LOVE ALL OF YOU.
> 
> Tavkat fluff, anyone? 8D  
> Short chapter today, because I'm dying to just post something already. I've been struggling to plot out the next part for SO LONG.
> 
> FYI for those of you who want to keep tabs on my writing progress at any given moment, check the fic summary (on Chapter 1 or just in the general view of the fic from your bookmarks or my profile page). I tend to post status updates there every week if the fic itself hasn't updated.


	56. Chapter 56

With the dream bubble detours that flying a large ship entails, you still only have about ten days left to prepare. After it takes the three of you the better part of a week just to tweak a leftover Farmbot into a bootlegged version of Jade’s Dreambot that can reliably transfer consciousness to yourself or Rose, it’s clear that the hope of creating an experimental anti mind scourge device- let alone testing and mass producing it for your motley crew of ship mates- is not going to happen nearly fast enough for it to work. You’ve long since switched tactics, focusing on getting as many Dreambots as possible to work using troll consciousness. 

It took just as long to drop kick Sollux’s ass enough to get it through his skull that it’s both counterproductive and annoying as hell for him to keep pulling all-nighters, skipping meals and then drifting off when he’s actually trying to get work done with the two of you as a team. He tells you you’re a damned hypocrite because you were just as bad before you left Swindler’s Mark, and besides, testing the Dreambot requires fucking with your sleep schedule with a million short naps by necessity- then Jade smacks both of you affectionately upside the head and reminds you to save the bickering for your own time. Sollux’s eyes dart between her face and yours, and then he goes a bit yellow, pinching the bridge of his nose and grumbling under his breath. One or both of you must have committed yet another troll faux pas. No big deal, this happens every day.

With (mostly) regular sleep, food and exercise Sollux’s moods have improved noticeably and even his eyes seem brighter. You’re getting closer to his shitty ice planet and he has finally delivered the breakthrough that allows you to rig another Farmbot into a functional prototype. If you push yourselves hard enough you think you can iron all the kinks out of the first model, build a motherboard to copy the operating system into and have two working troll Dreambots in operation by the time you’re in orbital range. That’s a total of one Jade only Dreambot, one all-human Dreambot and two troll operated Dreambots; a whole lot better than nothing.

***

At T-Minus 24 hours, the old man calls one last ship wide meeting in the bridge – all hands – to hammer out the war plan for your impending rescue mission. Sollux sticks close to Jade and Bec, scratching at the scruff at the base of the massive dog’s neck to help keep a lid on his discomfort around large crowds. His mouth is set in a grim line and his eyebrows are furrowed. He knows just how important it is for him to be here and offer his voice.

“Okay first off, a status update. I’ll start.” You know shit is about to hit the fan when Mituna is all business and no dirty jokes. “We have one last dreambubble to go through to take us directly into the Cold As Globes V Solar System, and we’re going to be in it for about an hour because we need to slow way the fuck down to avoid smacking into the asteroid belt on the opposite side. Mind you, the shields can take it, but it would be an unnecessary waste of our energy. It’s a mid-sized bubble, so be prepared for fluctuations in our gravitational field.”

“If there are any strong mind scourges planetside, we’ll be in their range as soon as we’re out of the bubble. Worst case, we have to assume that there are strong mind scourges waiting for us and we’re heavily outnumbered. I’m not an expert on siege warfare so correct me if I’m wrong, Hull Crusher. We have way too much power on board for them to try to wear us down with their own siege vessel, right?”

“Not with a single siege vessel, but they could wear us down in a few days to a week if they decide to call in three or four siege vessels as backup. We need to be long gone before they get the chance.”

“Until then their most likely strategy will be to take over our minds, make most of us kill each other, board the vessel and then kill or capture whoever is left. If we want to keep from killing each other, we have to lock everyone who is susceptible to mind attacks away in their respiteblocks separately from each other, and crank up the shields on each block as necessary to prevent telekinetic damage to the hull, walls or doors.”

“We’re here to pick up two allies from planetside before they freeze their asses off. We’ll need at least three volunteers to pull this off. One: someone who is immune to mind fuckery and also really damn good at dodging and dogfights to land the Thunder Clap, find up our guys, pick them up and return to home base, because we won’t have enough psionics who aren’t being mind controlled to power a landing and takeoff for the entire siege ship. Whoever it is will probably have to knock out or capture our guys, because you can bet that as soon as the mind scourges figure out our strategy they’re going to find them before we do.”

“Two, we need at least one other immune person to pilot the Hull Crusher. Our pilot will have the very big job of covering the Thunder Clap’s ass, keeping up shields, locks, visuals and communications, controlling the cargo bay doors, navigating us out of here when the heist is over, and opening up the locks after we’re back out of range. Hull Crusher, how are you coming along with training Jade on the ship controls?”

“She’s got the basics of navigation and ship controls down, but there’s no way to teach her target practice on the plasma cannons while we’re traveling at light speed. We have to make do without weaponry unless we can free up someone else who is already a good shot.”

“Okay that’s three then. Four: We’re going to need to use someone as a power source to buy us as much time as possible, because high strength shielding all over the ship will burn up the batteries like crazy. I hate to say this, but whoever volunteers as our power source will have to get hooked up to the biowires to decouple the mind fuckery from control over their psionics.”

Sollux takes a deep breath, stands up straighter and bows his head slightly. It’s a subtle horn gesture; you’ve been around trolls for long enough to understand that he is expecting to be challenged and he isn’t about to back down. “Five, MT. I want to hack the helmsmen out of the mind scourge ships just like we did at the Swindler’s Mark spaceport.”

Of _course_ he does. You haven’t even had the free time to unpack your video games yet and you can already tell Sollux must be the type who wants to unlock all of the achievements on every level.

Mituna grins as if he was expecting nothing less. “Care to tell us your plan, Second Ship Captor?”

He gets flustered every time someone calls him by his brand new adult title like he’s trying on an oversized pair of shoes, but this time the set of his horns remains the same as he meets the eyes of several people immediately surrounding him. “I _want_ to hack the helmsmen out of the mind scourge ships, but we won’t have enough troll capable Dreambots ready by tomorrow.” Sollux sighs and looks anywhere except for you and his Ancestor. “…Strider can handle it.”

Well that sure was a grudging compliment. Mituna is struggling not to comment on it even more than you are, snorting and pretending to cough into his fist until he regains his composure.

“I volunteer as the power source for the Hull Crusher’s ship battery,” Sollux continues hurriedly, shrinking back toward Bec.

That wipes the smile off Mituna’s face pretty quickly. “You’re sure?”

Sollux nods even as the doubt in his eyes suggests otherwise.

“Want me to go pick them up?” Mituna asks gently, catching on an unspoken cue that you seem to have missed.

He nods again, still clearly unhappy, but the tension in his shoulders eases slightly. “HC should use the last Dreambot.”

“Thanks!” says Jade, “I’d be pretty nervous by myself.”

Hull Crusher gives her a high five like they’ve become two green eyed bosom buddies. You have no doubt that their teamwork is going to turn out to be as epic as yours in the near future.

“Six,” adds Thunder Clap. “Psionic forces transmit well through robots, but not over long distances. I volunteer as my own ship’s battery.” He looks to his moirail with the absolute certainty that she will keep him safe.

“Good point.” Mituna returns to business mode to wrap up the meeting. “Alright, one last thing. MP, WV, you’ve probably already guessed this but you guys are on first aid and general back up duties. Make sure Hull Crusher and I stay asleep for as long as necessary; use anesthetics if you have to. Stay armed, but try not to kill anyone. I don’t think I need to repeat that for you, Jade and Hull Crusher. Good luck everyone, and stay safe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was looking back at previous chapters to see where we were with the timeline of actually getting to CAGV and whoops, I just realized Sollux mysteriously already had shades in Part 53 that I hadn’t explicitly mentioned him wearing before. :’D The most logical time for Dirk to have made them is right after he made Psii’s shades between Chapter 49 and Chapter 50, while Sollux was busy hacking into the Swindler’s Mark ship base.


	57. Chapter 57

MP had some training as a nurse, not an anaesthetician, which means you are about to stare down the biowires face to face as they bore your scars right back open again. Fun! The only reason you aren’t shitting yourself right now is because the painkillers she _did_ give you have kicked in bigtime and you’re loopier than a corkscrew. You can’t feel your horns, or any of your limbs. As MP guides your stumbling steps into the activated helmscolumn, the prodding biowires seem more like part of a weird dream than reality. 

Woooow, you can’t feel your face either. It’s especially weird considering how your formerly crippling anxiety has now fled so far away it’s as if you’ve been papped. Thank fuck. You could have gone on beating yourself up for several more hours, not so secretly dying to swoop in and save Karkat yourself and knowing you’re too inexperienced and emotionally compromised not to fuck it up. It’s why you swallowed your pride and picked the _easy_ job. God, this is going to look so bad when KK gets here. He’s your moirail; he’ll understand, right?

MP blinks at you with a worried furrow in her brow and a questioning tilt of her head. You blink twice, slowly, mirroring her as your head droops to the side like you’re a confused bird. In your inebriated state it takes you a few tries before you manage to parse that she’s asking you how you’re doing.

“I’m a bowl of thoup!” You lisp brightly in response. “Thlurp my noodleth. Ehehe. Eheheheehehehe.” MP abandons you with a sigh and a shake of her head, clearly embarrassed on your behalf. Whoever dares to attempt an invasion on your fucked up brain is in for a surprise.

***

Your new name is First Ship Captor, and you’re about to embark on the most badass nap in history. You’ve just woken up in your temporary robot body, and so far the weirdest thing about it is how you feel so awake when you could have sworn you were drifting off a second ago. For the most part everything else is immediately familiar. You have a body with cameras for eyes that can transmit visual inputs to your think pan, just like your shades. You aren’t currently piloting it, but you still have access to the Hull Crusher’s ship data, so you can choose to switch between images from your robot eyes and the cameras around the block. Examining your new body from all angles, you see a nondescript humanoid shape in grey metal with no horns, no hair and no facial features other than a pair of red eyes.

Switching back to your robot body, it occurs to you that you are standing up without propping yourself up with psionics. You try to stick out a tongue you don’t actually have as you take an experimental step forward. You topple onto your face with a loud clang. Fuck it, you don’t have time to learn how to walk again. Jadebot’s face doesn’t move, but you get the vague impression that she’s smiling at you without any trace of judgement as she extends a hand to help you back up onto your feet. You fly after her as she gives you a quick rundown of all of your robot’s features. She leads you to the Thunder Clap, disconnects you from the Hull Crusher and patches you into the troop transport’s navigation system instead. Bidding you good luck, she heads back to the bridge to go kick some ass with Hull Crusher.

Now all you have to do is wait for the other shoe to drop. Everyone needed to be in position well before the next dreambubble hits, or else they might find themselves getting lost in the intersection between realities on the way to the load gaper, and then when the ship flies out it turns out they ended up outside the hull or sliced in half by a wall. The end result is that you’re stuck with a two hour long hurry up and wait routine before battle. You’ve lived through the exact same combination of boredom and nerves a million times. Even in the absence of the Empress and her influence, circumstances may yet force you to kill again; the very idea makes you sick with dread. Meanwhile, you are praying fervently for the upcoming dreambubble to be a barren, uninhabited moonscape. You absolutely cannot afford for a haunting to crush your morale when there are so many people depending on you.

Reality flickers, and you are back inside your shriveled troll body, seeing more with your horns than your eyes. The cockpit around you melts away into Alternian grass and sky, already a very bad sign. Worse, you are all alone; your ship mates must be enclosed in different dimensions of the bubble in the distance somewhere, completely out of reach. Warily surveying your surroundings for any signs of life, you can’t help feeling that something is distinctly off. Then your eyes fall on the empty flogging jut, bloodied in crimson. _That’s_ what was wrong, the crowd is missing! Oh holy _shit_ , you do _not_ want to be here. Unless _he’s_ here? Your think pan is evenly split between wild hope and panic, unable to act on either. You float there gaping with your vascular pump pounding in your throat, paralyzed until a very large blank eyed figure coalesces from the shimmering air in front of you, clutching a broken bow to his chest.

 _E%ecutor Darkleer_. The sight of his ghost has you floating higher and sucking as much air as you can possibly fit into your lungs on instinct, hissing and sparking and trying to make yourself look bigger.

He drops the shattered remains of his weapon with apparent difficulty; you notice a slight tremor in his hands. “Be at peace, Ψiioniic. There is something difficult I would ask of you.”

“What?” Your hissing cuts off immediately and gives way to a confused, disdainful frown.

“I seek your forgiveness.” That renders you speechless for several seconds. It isn’t until he prostrates himself at your feet that you realize Darkleer is just as stooped with age as you are. He’s still pretty buff for an old guy in a tough, leathery sort of way, but much of the muscle mass that once made him so intimidating has retreated somewhere under his wrinkles. Darkleer seems almost desperate to fill the silence as he goes on. “You do not have to give it, but I ask that you at least lend an ear to my story, as I have had no other audience for many sweeps, and certainly none who would understand its significance quite as well as yourself. Please.”

“Don’t bother. The entire sordid tale has been force fed into my think pan through my video feed already and it’s ancient fucking news. Boo fucking hoo, you had a sudden attack of pale hormones for the troll whose matesprit you just killed before her eyes, then you spent the rest of your miserable existence selfishly feeling sorry for yourself in a cave because she wouldn’t forgive you and you weren’t good enough for the Highbloods anymore either. Have you ever _listened_ to what she had to say even once? You don’t even _know_ me. I bet you just see me as a proxy for her presence and you want me to acknowledge your disgusting groveling so you can finally feel validated about yourself after a million sweeps. Sounds about right, Darkleer? That would sure be fucking convenient, wouldn’t it? Excuse me while I completely fail to sympathize. You brought this upon yourself, asshole.” His ears droop and you can see him physically flinching as every forceful word hits home. Ugh. You feel profoundly uncomfortable. You’ve spent all your venom and it wasn’t cathartic at all; now you’re just tired. “Get up. I can’t stand looking at you like that.”

“Yes, certainly, I apologize, I-” Darkleer is still hunched in on himself as he pulls himself up into a sitting position. “That is… mostly true.” He looks up at you. “Except… do you not see how this place has remained timeless and empty, his blood still damp and fresh for an eternity? Tell me. What should I have done instead? Neigh, I revise my statement, that will solve nothing. What should I do now?” It’s hard to read his expression behind the dark lenses of his helmet, but his voice sounds like a much, much deeper version of an honest to god lost wriggler and it’s disconcerting. He is anchored here by genuine guilt and he has no idea how to move on. Okay maybe you sympathize a little after all, or at least you’re starting to feel bad for snarling at a long dead ghost. 

“You’re seriously asking for my advice?” Without a single allusion to your blood color? Maybe being dead really has changed him. You fold your legs up underneath you and drift downward until you are floating cross-legged in front of him at face level. Frowning, you scrutinize what you can see of his expression very closely. “First I have to know. What did you wish you had done if you had the courage to go through with it? Be honest.”

Now he’s sweating like a suspect under the lamp of a legislacerator. Damn right, you’re judging him. If he tells you he wishes he could have killed Meulin too, so help you god you are abandoning this conversation and sulking in the farthest corner of this fragment of reality until the whole horrible dreambubble is over.

“I… wish I could have saved him,” Darkleer finally admits very quietly, and all at once this big heavy motherfucker of a grudge- one that you’ve hauled with you all the way across the universe and back- just falls right off your chest. You have to land on solid dream ground just to keep yourself from floating away.

“Okay fuck it, I changed my mind. I forgive you. We should have found you sooner,” you sigh, massaging your eyelids with the pads of your fingers as all the tension drains from the frame of your body. “It was so damned hard and dangerous to talk to anyone cooler than green. You know what I’d really like for you to do, something I haven’t been able to do myself? Go find Signless and the Disciple. I know it’s going to be one hell of an awkward conversation but do it anyway. It will help. You can tell them I sent you. The two of them must be together in a dreambubble like yours somewhere, probably a big one, collecting a million other ghosts just like you. That’s where I want to go when I die.”

“You are still alive? How is that possible?”

“Oh don’t get me started. It’s a really long and depressing story unless I just skip to the fun part.”

“No, I would like to hear what happened to you from the beginning.”

“Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

You’re barely through the first day after you were captured when you are abruptly jerked back into your robot body feeling disoriented, lonely and disappointed that you couldn’t ride this emotional rollercoaster to its conclusion. You make a mental note to mark this dreambubble as Darkleer in your server map and try to make time to visit him later. Wait, did you just have a feelings jam with a ghost? God damn it. You were so convinced it would be too unfair to saddle anyone with all of your baggage, yet here you are. This sort of shit is exactly why the word for friend is universally the same as the word for enemy in all Alternian dialects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOPS now I ship them pale.


	58. Chapter 58

You’re surrounded. You’re overwhelmingly outnumbered, about three thousand to two. Furthermore, Thunder Clap’s power puts severe limitations on your plasma cannons and shields compared to the vast reserves you’re used to. This is a terrible idea.

Not like that’s ever stopped you before!

You dance a fine line between nerves and exhilaration as Hull Crusher implores you one last time to keep her moirail safe and finally opens up the hangar door. The barrage of fire starts hitting her shields before it’s even fully open. It’s impossible to avoid taking a few battery draining hits to your own shields as she launches you outward in reverse, but after that you’re off like a gunshot, swinging back into Darkleer’s dreambubble for safety for just long enough to wave goodbye, leaving him looking bewildered as your dream self winks out of existence.

When you come out you’re a tiny distance away from where you were before in cosmic terms, but it’s enough to land you behind enemy lines, aiming a rapid succession of shots at their weapons. You miss nearly all of them, but at least you can take solace in the fact that several mind scourge ships that tried to follow you have already ended up disoriented in the wrong corner of the galaxy. Suckers. Too bad you won’t be able to free their helmsmen yet. The vast majority wouldn’t have fit on the Hull Crusher anyway.

Others come charging out of the dream bubble right next to you only to cause complete chaos trying not to crash directly into their colleagues. You’re in the middle of laughing like an asshole when you realize that their disorderly swerving looks suspiciously symmetrical in several places. Fucking Kaleidoscourges! No wonder you could barely land any hits when you’ve been aiming at a mirror image in empty space. The good news is, this means there definitely aren’t 3000 mind scourge ships out for your blood. The bad news is that it’s difficult to get a good handle on how many enemies you actually have and those that remain are a real pain in the ass to target. That goes double for the Kaleidoscourges themselves; the reflectivity makes them nearly invisible.

You start aiming for the intersections of the lines of symmetry instead. All the other ships and their false images keep getting in the fucking way, but at least Hull Crusher and Jade caught on without you having to find the time to message them. You swerve your way through a cross section of the fleet and a hail of crossfire. Then the Kaleidoscourges unanimously decide to switch out their filters and suddenly every last ship in the mind scourge fleet looks identical to the Thunder Clap to an outside observer without the matching filter breaking code applied to their visual feeds. God DAMN it.

Oh yeah? Well if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, let’s see them imitate THIS. You dive through the clouds, down and down into a narrow winding channel carved out by a glacier where few of your enemies even see which way you went, let alone dare to follow. Hah! When you re-emerge from the canyon you’re down to three unmasked pursuers. You are also down to less than 50% of your remaining battery power. The friction of re-entry was not kind on your shields. Shit. You gamble on freeing the three Helmsmen fast enough to give you a boost before the rest of the fleet realizes they’re missing. You pick off the three mind scourge vessels one by one, obliterating their plasma cannons and shooting down their main thrusters, forcing each ship to make a smoky crash landing. You’re down by another 10% as you knock out all their crew members and help to cushion the falls with your robot’s psionics.

ΨIIONIIC [Ψ]  began trolling timeausTestified [TT] on Hangar Terminal

Ψ: HEY 5TRIIDER

Ψ: 5HOT DOWN THREE 5HIIP5, CAN YOU 5PRIING THE HELM5 REALLY FA5T?

TT: On it.

ΨIIONIIC [Ψ]  stopped trolling timeausTestified [TT]  on Hangar Terminal.

You land nearby, open the ramp door at the head of the Thunder Clap and stand just outside on the ramp, waving at the other ships with both robotic arms. Your airlock door is firmly sealed while you need to keep the frigid air out of the rest of the small ship. Within minutes the bay doors of the three downed mind scourge vessels open by a crack. Three bleeding ex-helmsmen cautiously stick their heads out, get slapped in the face by the blast of cold air and promptly retreat back inside. Oh come _on_. Both of your metal palms clank against your metal face. You try again, waving harder. _Hurry up!_ They finally get the picture and fly into your vestibule in a big, frightened, shivering hurry, mistrustful but unwilling to ask questions. You shut the door behind them and let them into the thorax of the vessel where Thunder Clap is thrashing and snarling in the helmscolumn, his eyes glazed over with mind control. It’s pretty awkward.

“I’m First Ship Captor… sort of. I’ll explain later. And this is Thunder Clap. Don’t worry about him, we’ll get him out of here after I’ve dropped you guys and a couple friends off inside the Siege Vessel Hull Crusher. But for now I don’t want to tire him out too much so can I borrow some power off you guys? After that you can grab the first aid kit if you want to, but definitely have a seat in the abdomen and buckle the fuck up because this ride isn’t nearly over yet.” Obviously they know they’re going to be stuck there for an indeterminate amount of time, but you feel bad about saying it out loud.

They’re so meek you can barely get their names out of them. Understandable yet frustrating. Volun-Told, Nudge Nudge and Suggestion comply with your request to charge up your batteries like they’ve just been handed orders from some seadweller prince who happens to be casually waving a gun in their general direction. The three new ex-helmsmen glumly shuffle into place, worried more about whether the situation will get any worse than whether or not they are walking into another prison. A petite rustblood with blunt, curved horns, Nudge Nudge falls asleep in her seat right away. Well that’s one less mind scourge target to worry about. Tall and slim, Volun-Told stares tiredly out the window with her chin in her hand, her fork-tipped horns pointing backward into the block. Suggestion fidgets, biting at his lower lip and staring in the general direction of Thunder Clap’s helmscolumn beyond the doorway. You mentally sigh as you crank up your internal shields, lock their buckles in place and hope for the best.


	59. Chapter 59

Weird. You keep expecting a second wave of mind scourge ships to come after you and it never arrives. You thought you would probably have to knock out your psionic passengers, but they never turn against each other and start up an unwanted crossfire of optic blasts in your cabin either. The only thing slowing your progress toward the last known location of the trolls you’re looking for is a stupid blizzard. Big deal. If a patch of rough weather was capable of stopping you, some wave-tossing thunderstorm would have broken you to pieces and drowned you in the ocean long before you were ever captured into the Alternian fleet.

***

TT: That should take care of the last mirror encryption.

TT: Refresh your feeds.

HC: oh there we go

HC: no s!gn of FS com!ng back yet

HC: at least we’ll be able to tell who they’re shoot!ng at when he does T:F

HC: as!de from shoot!ng at us that !s

GG: but they stopped shooting at us!

GG: look, there’s more of them coming back

GG: what are they up to?

GG: mituna are you okay down there?

Ψ: BLIINDIING 5NOW

Ψ: GALE FORCE WIIND5

Ψ: YOU KNOW, THE U5UAL

GG: oh nooo!

Ψ: GEEZ, 5HOO5H YOUR RUMBLE 5PHERE5. II CAN HANDLE A LIITTLE IICE.

TT: Jesus fucking Christ. Start shooting faster or he won’t be okay for long.

HC: !!! O:F

GG: down boy! bad dog!!!

TT: Oh for fuck’s sake.

Ψ: WAIIT, WHAT DIID II MII55?

Ψ: II CAN’T 5EE WORTH 5HIIT

Ψ: HELLO?

Ψ: GUY5?

TT: You’d better haul ass, Mituna.

TT: They’ve weaponized the asteroid belt using our own freed helmsman.

TT: Did I mention the fucking mirrors? Those never stopped being a thing.

TT: It’s nothing short of a disaster.

TT: Hull Crusher is trying to deflect a metric assload of space rocks from all directions to keep them from breaching her shields or causing a continent-sized explosion on your planet.

TT: I’m not sure how long she can fend them off.

Ψ: FIILTHY MURDERER5!!

Ψ: 30 OF THEIIR OWN FLEETMATE5 ARE 5TIILL PLANET5IIDE IIN THE THREE 5HIIP5 II DII5ABLED, WE CAN’T JU5T LEAVE THEM 2 DIIE!!

TT: There’s no time.

TT: Baseload and Standby have already passed out and are bleeding from their eyes.

TT: Sollux is holding up okay so far, but we’re burning battery power like crazy.

Ψ: FUCK

Ψ: POIINT TAKEN

TT: Also, the mind scourges found a way to take control of our canine friend.

TT: We’re down one gunner while Jade is tied down keeping Bec from mauling HC to death in her sleep.

Ψ: UGH

Ψ: AT LEA5T THAT MEAN5 5OLLUX’5 5UMMONER FRIIEND MU5T BE ALIIVE

***

Shit. You should have knocked out your psionic passengers after all. You do it now to keep the fight from getting any worse.

You know that returning the mind scourge crew members to their cutthroat fleetmates would get them culled for failing to capture you. You know that taking them as temporary prisoners would present a huge liability for your allies, and that your top priority will leave you with little if any time or power left for unscheduled heroics. If there’s even a remote chance of returning to save them after you bring back Sollux’s friends without endangering anyone else, you’ll take it in a heartbeat. And yet you already feel guilty and upset at the very idea of having to abandon the mind scourge ships you downed. Their deaths will be your fault, tainting your victory with a bitter aftertaste.

It is in this frame of mind that you arrive hurriedly at the prison ship’s landing site, where you start flying in an outward spiral to scan the ground for troll shaped heat signatures. When you come across a large patch of thermal vents and hot springs within a reasonably close range of the original landing site, it’s both hopeful and incredibly frustrating. There is so much background noise in your heat scan that the search program is belching out an endless, virtual headache-inducing stream of false positives. You readjust the search parameters to screen out everything but brownblood temperature and make a brief stop to allow the sensors to recalibrate. You gingerly pick out a parking spot that won’t land half of your ass in a pool of boiling water. A stone’s throw away, all the members of a scenic herd of grazing animals lift their heads warily in your direction. “Hey fuck you too, I’m busy over here.”

“HEY!” Getting attacked by a stampeding herd of scenic native beasts was not part of the plan. The bastards won’t even stop when they’ve hit solid metal. At this rate if you don’t take off again they could tip you right over. You’re almost sure these creatures have never seen a space ship in their entire lives, and yet it’s almost like they’re… doing it… deliberately… You look closer in your camera feeds and catch sight of the fur-clad figures riding on the back of two of the beasts, the first with a glazed over look in his glowing brown eyes, and the second shrieking a frightened stream of profanities and clinging to a beast for dear life as it tries to shake him off.

This might be hilarious if the situation wasn’t so urgent. Since you don’t have time for bullshit, you knock both of them out and use your psionics to hold the wooly beasts still while you float Kankri and the Summoner’s respective descendants into the front section of your cabin and strap them into their seats.

You’ve just freed Jade up to return to gunning, but it’s already too late. All takes is for a single city-sized asteroid to slip past their defenses and the next thing you know, 99% of the species on the planet are a mere geological memory. Your thermal scanners paint a gruesome picture of a thousand exploded rock fragments raining streaks of fire over your head. They burn through the clouds, leaving gaping wounds in the grey sky. Close on their heels, the edge of a hulking misshapen mass of iron is just beginning to breach the atmosphere, heating up from red to white. You have about ten minutes left to get the fuck out of the way. Dreaming a sick sense of dread in the stomach your robot body doesn’t have, you wonder how many helmsmen the mind scourges wrung dry to get it here. This close, under the influence of this much gravity, not even you would be able to lift an object that massive without making your eyes bleed.

You accelerate off the ground as fast as you possibly can without physically hurting your passengers. As its glow rapidly outshines the searing intensity of the Alternian sun in the daytime, you seal off all of your windows against the ever-brightening sky to keep everyone from going blind. Soon your camera feeds also go blind, thermal and otherwise, leaving you with no way to dodge unanticipated rock fragments aside from dumb luck and the protection of your shields.

Damned invisible projectiles. Your trajectory calculations have faithfully saved your life countless times, but they can’t predict any of the new debris generated by Hull Crusher’s ongoing battle with the mind scourge ships in orbit. One of the Thunder Clap’s sensor antennae snaps off with a crunch. You rattle through a series of minor collisions that break a landing leg on either side and leave minor dents in your hull even through the shields. A larger meteorite shears your right wing cleanly in half, forcing you to counterbalance against listing to one side. It won’t be an issue for long if you can just break free of the atmosphere already.

As your surroundings darken enough for your cameras and sensors to flicker back to life, you find a minefield of shattered rock reflected endlessly through the night sky and a truly impressive exploding shockwave on the surface of the planet you left behind, melting ice into boiling oceans and spewing forth a column of ash that reaches nearly all the way to your elevation. You bid a solemn goodbye to the crew of the fallen mind scourge ships. There is no time to dwell on their loss among all the projectiles that keep redirecting themselves into your flight path. Fuck this shit. You blast your way through the offending rocks and make a beeline for Hull Crusher’s hangar.

Ψ: OH GOD LET ME IIN AND GET ME OUT OF HERE!!

HC: roger that!!! !’m so glad you’re back!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOPS. I messed up on Psii's typing quirk. Fixed.


	60. Chapter 60

For the first time in your lengthy piloting career, you actually have no idea where you’re going other than _fucking far away_ as fast as possible. Hull Crusher is taking care of it; you have another job to do. You’re the only one with enough energy left to bail Sollux out on battery charging duties before the accelerating siege vessel bleeds his psionics dry. You reach out to MP to wake you up as soon as you’re clear of Darkleer’s dream bubble where it’s safe to move around the ship and you’re well out of mind scourge range.

Returning to consciousness feels like it takes both an eternity and an instant. Your eyes snap open but you can’t place yourself. Where are your cameras, your microphones, your ailerons? You’re so dizzy and everything looks like a dim milky blur. Oh yeah, you’re blind. Stupid geriatric troll body.

It’s cold. You are lying on some kind of uncomfortable platform that provides no cushioning whatsoever for your bony ass. Your ears place you in the medical block, surrounded by the uncomfortable sounds of a squadron of ex-helmsmen suffering from severe psychic burnout. Your nose wrinkles at the smell of blood, vomit and mind honey. NOPE, fuck, you do not want any part of this. You feel around for your visor with your psionics, find them neatly folded on a table beside you and deliberately delay putting it on until after you’ve absconded from the block.

Holy _shit_ you are dying for some good news. You stop to check on Sollux before channeling your power through the main feeder cable to battery storage. He is sound asleep without much of a glow from behind his eyelids or around his horns, but at least his color is good and he hasn’t shown any signs of bleeding from his eyes. You’re pretty sure he’ll be fine after a little rest and a lot of food.

You, on the other hand, are abruptly overwhelmed by a wave of light headedness that forces you to stop floating above floor level, sinking into a sitting position with your legs sprawled out in front of you and your back leaning heavily against the wall. Whoops, MP is going to kill you. It belatedly occurs to you that you probably should have eaten breakfast before dumping all of your power into the ship. The nutrition block is so far away. Your robot is still in the Thunder Clap and you can’t access it from your visor’s connection to the siege vessel Hull Crusher’s network. What if you just… try to fall back asleep and get it to bring you something?

***

What the fuck. You aren’t freezing your ass off anymore, and something is restraining your movements. You sit bolt upright and snap your eyes open in a panic. The restraint turns out to be nothing more than a seat belt, but that still doesn’t explain where you are in this small passenger vessel and why nobody has culled you yet. Your eyes land on Tavros as he walks up and down the aisle, investigating his surroundings through all the windows while trying not to bump anything with his horns. Thank fuck nobody has culled him yet either. Lost between relief and suspicion, you have to hug him to make sure he’s real.

“Where are we?”

“I don’t know, exactly, it looks like a hangar.” You stick close to him in silence as he walks up to the front to try to door to the next forward facing segment of the passenger vessel. To your immense surprise, it isn’t locked. The double doors slide open, leading to the head of the vessel which contains an open access hatch down to the hangar surrounded by a thin walkway to the ship controls and the largest windows of the vessel. 

Your feet freeze to the ground as you notice the copper blooded helmsman hanging in a nest of wires directly in front of you at the nose of the vessel. He stirs, the expression on his face changing from distant preoccupation to something disdainful and cold staring right back at you. “Better me than you or your friend, isn’t it? I don’t care that you’ve obviously never seen a helmsman at work before. I am not some kind of zoo animal. I am not here for your entertainment. I am not a wretched thing of inanimate pity. Move along before my opinion of you drops any further.”

“Wow, I haven’t said _one_ word to you, you pretentious chute licker!”

A deep female voice comes in over the loudspeaker. “Thunder, that was uncalled for! We’ll talk later!”

“You could say Thunder Clap is a bit… high strung,” lisps a hornless robot that you hadn’t previously noticed as it stands up from one of the ship’s control panels and pokes the helmsman in the side. The robot wasn’t built with any facial expression but it sounds like it’s grinning like an idiot.

Thunder Clap groans, rolling his whole head back along with his eyes. “Never make a helmsman pun again, First Ship.”

“You deserved it, asshole.” _Why_ does the robot have a lisp? “You know, it would have helped if you actually told them you volunteered as ship battery on the rescue mission to save their asses.”

Thunder Clap seems to soften a little, his voice coming out gruff. “I’ve served as the battery of this troop transport every night for more than twenty sweeps. I fail to see how this is any different other than the fact that you were the pilot this time.”

“Well there you go. He isn’t all bad. Modest, even.”

Your think pan can’t process all the implications of that in time to think of something to say, so you’re grateful when Tavros steps closer and thanks both of them.

First Ship shuffle-clanks its way slowly down the access hatch as if it isn’t quite sure on its feet. Someone must have a done a damned good job with the programming to make it look so sentient. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m fucking starving. This way to the nutrition block.”

What. “Can’t you just plug yourself in?”

“Hah! Just did. Well, more or less, which is exactly why I could use a huge slice of grub loaf right now. I wonder if Waggon has any more left over.” First Ship cranes its head around to look at you and snickers at the dubious expression on your face. “Okay I’ll stop pulling your leg. I’m not actually a robot you know, I’m just controlling one because I’m a tired old man. First Ship Captor at your service. Or Mituna, or the Psiioniic. Call me whatever you want.”

“You’re Sollux’s _Ancestor _!? The same miserable Helmsman with a thousand year stare in his prophetic daymare!? Fuck me sideways with a rusty culling fork, next you’re going to tell me we’re guests of honor on the Battleship Condescension.”__

__“To answer your questions, yes, I wasn’t _that_ miserable all the time, and hell no. This is the Imperial Siege Vessel Hull Crusher. Sollux hacked the shit out of an entire space port to steal this ship and everybody on it.”_ _

__You can’t decide whether to be proud or terrified. You get right up in his robot face and block him from taking another step. “Where is he?”_ _

__“Sleeping. He just powered an entire siege and our getaway.”_ _

__That answer only makes you more agitated. “I want to see him.”_ _

__“Vantas. Kid.”_ _

__“Karkat.”_ _

__“Karkat. He’s not going to evaporate into thin air if we stop for breakfast first.” You set your jaw and lower your eyebrows. “…Okay _fine_ , I recognize _that_ stubborn look when I see it. I was on my way back there anyway. We’re still stopping in the nutrition block first, because _I_ just recharged power to the shields, weapons and life support around here, god damn it.”_ _

__The Psiioniic’s robot leads you on what seems like an excessively long path, out through the sliding airlock doors of the hangar, past stacks of storage boxes and a swarm of idle maintenance droids buzzing nervously back and forth looking for something to do, around a large and obvious circular room in the middle of the floor which he tells you is the electrical room. Even though he seems to get impatient with the slow shuffling pace of the robot’s steps faster than you do, it still takes a solid ten minutes just to get to the elevator on the other side of the electrical room after the robot starts flying at a brisk yet slightly shaky walking pace._ _

__This reminder of the enclosed space around him makes Tavros seem just as restless as the maintenance droids were. He is uncharacteristically quiet as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. You can tell he’s trying not to make it obvious that he’s shuffling his cramped wings under the heavy wooly beast fur. How much do the inhabitants of this ship already know about him? How will they react? Thinking about the vulnerability of your situation tempers your impatience. You stick close to him and briefly take hold of his hand._ _

__Once the elevator doors slide open, it turns out the nutrition block is only a few more steps away. It’s weird watching a robot rummage around in the thermal hull. “Aww yes! There’s still a big piece. Want some?”_ _

__Not particularly. You’re too anxious to feel hungry._ _

__“Suit yourself. You don’t know what you’re missing.” He heats up the plate and goes merrily on his way. A few short minutes down the corridor you come across the doors to a smaller circular room. The Psiionic’s robot breezes right through them, lands in front of a snoring four horned troll slumped at the base of the helmscolumn and shakes him awake with a foot to the ribs. The robot freezes in place where it stands on one leg as the troll on the ground yawns and shakes his head, wild hair flying in every direction. Sollux’s Ancestor is at once both familiar and nothing like you expected._ _

__From then on you stop paying attention to him because HOLY SHIT you were NOT prepared for the sight of Sollux in the helmscolumn. “Psiioniic, what the grub shitting FUCK!? How can you just sit there with a fork in your frond when there are a thousand wires eating Sollux alive!?!”_ _

__“I told you he was powering the ship.” the Psiisonic sighs, not sounding the least bit distressed. “Now back up and think about what you just said. Would I have a frond to hold a fork in if the biowires ate me alive?”_ _

__“You didn’t tell me he was IN the helmscolumn! Why is he there when you just told me you powered it yourself from outside?”_ _

__“Did you _see_ how many mind scourges were up there?”_ _

__“MIND scourges put him in the-”_ _

__“No, no, no! You didn’t let me finish.”_ _

__“Get him down!”_ _

__“Will you shut up and _listen_ for two seconds?”_ _

__“Nah, let him keep going MT. I missed the sound of KK shitting a brick.” Sollux yawns luxuriously, stretching as far as the cables allow him, his pointed yellow tongue curling upward behind his fangs. He opens his eyes and _beams_ at you._ _

__That _asshole!_. You wrap your arms around as much of him as you can reach (somewhere around his knees) and burst into tears. Fuck it, if the biowires decide to devour you alive they can have you. “What are _you_ so happy about, you incandescent clusterfuck!? You look terrible!”_ _

__“So? You smell like a wet barkbeast,” Sollux croons back at you, halfway between tender and obnoxiously smug._ _

__“More romantic words have never been uttered!”_ _

__You flip off both Sollux _and_ his Ancestor._ _

__“Seriously KK, I’ve already hacked this system. I can get out of here whenever I want.”_ _

__“I’ll believe it when I fucking see it.”_ _

__“Will it really make you feel better if I bleed on you?”_ _

__“Yes.”_ _

__“Ugh, fine, if you insist.”_ _

__“I stand corrected,” the Psiioniic interjects. “That was romantic as fuck. P.S. don’t come crying to me when MP finally has enough free time on her claws to kill both of you.”_ _

__***_ _

__After a lot of swearing on both sides, Sollux half steps, half collapses out of the helmscolumn into Karkat’s arms, lightheaded, exhausted and purring. You suspect his painkillers haven’t _quite_ worn off yet. He’s lisping harder than usual, or maybe even slurring his words a little as he tries to argue reassurance into his stubborn brick of a moirail. It doesn’t look like Sollux will to be able to shoosh his way out of this one so easily._ _

__What actually calms Karkat down in the end is his guilt over the fact that he let a squeamish Tavros quietly sneak away on the pretense of getting bandages, where he ended up fainting in the medical bay at the sight of trolls in far worse condition than Sollux. By the time Karkat returns from the medical bay together with Tavros and the bandages, most of Sollux’s bleeding has already stopped and he’s stealing vast quantities of food off of your plate. There’s something immensely satisfying about seeing the three of them together, finally worn down into quietude and content in each other’s company._ _

__Mission accomplished, bitches!_ _

__***_ _

__DEAR DIIARY,_ _

__II’M GETTIING 2 KNOW KANKRII AND THE 5UMMONER’5 DE5CENDANT5 IIN PER5ON AND II’M DYIING 2 TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IIT!!_ _

__TAVRO5 II5 THE 5UMMONER’5 DE5CENDANT. 5AME HORN5, 5AME WIING5, 5AME POWER5, TOTALLY DIIFERENT PER5ONALIITY. HE DOE5N’T WANT 2 5TART A RIIOT, HE JU5T WANT5 TO BE FRIIEND5 WIITH EVERYBODY. E5PECIIALLY IIF THEY HAVE LU5II OR PET5. HE LIIKE5 PLAYIING FETCH WIITH HARLEY’5 BARKBEA5T. (II 5TIILL THIINK IIT’5 WEIIRD FOR HUMAN5 TO NAME THEIR WRIIGGLER5 AFTER COLOR5.) HE AL5O GET5 ALONG WELL WIITH THE 5ERVER BEE5 EVEN THOUGH HE DOE5N’T UNDER5TAND MUCH ABOUT PROGRAMMIING. 5OLLUX 5EEM5 2 LIIKE TALKIING ABOUT BEE5 AND PLAYIING VIIDEO GAME5 WIITH HIIM, 5ECRETLY EVEN 5OME OF THE ONE5 THAT ARE 5UPPO5ED 2 BE FOR WRIIGGLER5._ _

__TAVRO5 WA5N’T 5URE HOW EVERYBODY WA5 GOIING 2 REACT 2 HII2 WIING5, BUT ONCE THEY GOT U5ED 2 HIIM HE REALLY LIIKE5 HII5 MUTATIION. HE TELL5 ME THE GARDEN AND THE GYM ARE OKAY BUT HE WII5HE5 HE HAD MORE 5PACE TO FLY. MAYBE IIT WIIL HELP IIF WE TEACH HIIM HOW TO FLY THE HULL CRU5HER 5OMETIIME._ _

__NOW KARKAT, OH BOY, HE’5 THE EXACT OPPO5ITE OF KANKRII AND IIT’5 HY5TERIICAL. 5U5PIICIIOU5 OF EVERYONE AND A 5UBJUGGULATOR’5 PALATTE OF OFFEN5IIVE LANGUAGE. II’M GOIING 2 TEACH HIIM ALL THE 5WEAR5 IIN 5O MANY LANGUAGES AND RO5A CAN’T 5TOP ME! EHEHEHEHEHEEHEHE!_ _

__POOR A55HOLE. IIT WA5 A BIIG FUCKIING DEAL GETTIING CLOTHE5 FOR HIIM. AFTER PAIIN5TAKIINGLY PIICKIING OUT AN ENTIIRE WARDROBE OF BLACK AND GREY HE 5PENT HOUR5 WAFFLIING BEFORE FIINALLY PIICKING A 5HIIRT WIITH THE TIINIIE5T 5CRAP OF RED AND LOOKIING AROUND AT EVERYBODY LIIKE HE WA5 DARIING THEM TO PIICK A FIIGHT. IIF ANYONE DIID II WOULD KIICK THEIIR A55 IIN2 ORBIIT._ _

__KARKAT I5 5OLLUX’5 MOIIRAIIL AND TAVRO5’5 MATE5PRIIT. FUNNY HOW THIING5 WORK OUT LIIKE THAT. HE DOE5N’T QUIITE HAVE THE HANG OF BALANCIING BOTH OF THEM YET BUT HE’5 MAKIING AN EFFORT._ _

__HOW’5 THAT ONE FOR YOUR TALLY? II’M 5TILL HOLDIING OUT FOR 5OLLUX <3< DIIRK. ANY DAY NOW. EVERY TIIME II A5K HIIM HOW THE “TRAIINIING” WENT HE GIIVE5 ME A DIIRTY LOOK. HEHEHE. THE EXERCI5E II5 GOOD FOR HIIM. HE DOESN’T FORGET TO EAT AND 5LEEP NEARLY A5 OFTEN ANYMORE. II THIINK HE’5 GAIINIING WEIGHT._ _

__5OLLUX LOOK5 5O GENUIINELY HAPPY. HE DE5ERVE5 THE CHANCE 2 ENJOY IIT WHIILE IIT LA5T5. II’M 5O GLAD HE FOUND A WAY FOR U5 2 E5CAPE. II DON’T THIINK II’LL BE READY 2 TELL HIIM HOW MANY ENEMY COMBATANT2 WE LO5T IIN THE LA5T FIIGHT FOR A WHIILE._ _

__II WII5H YOU WERE 5TILL HERE 2 READ OVER MY 5HOULDER._ _

__LOVE,  
Ψ_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY FINALLY. I just wanted to stop sitting on the story even though the art isn't done. It's been too long.
> 
> This is the end of Terawatt Outlaws! I'm still going to post two more chapters. One will be an art gallery which will have all the art and music from throughout the story in one easy to find location plus fanart and (eventually) the art I'm still working on.
> 
> The last chapter will be Q&A. Feel free to leave questions about any characters in the comments.
> 
> I'm not done with this AU yet so watch this series! I might post another fic with epilogue drabbles in each chapter as I come up with them. Also still I have a Sollux <3< Dirk fic up my sleeve.
> 
> Thanks everyone for reading!
> 
> P.S. I shorten Terrawatt Outlaws as TWO. That's right, the title of this fic has been a two pun this WHOLE TIME. I can't believe the other shoe never dropped for any of you guys. FFFFF :'D


	61. Art Gallery

Hey guys! Have a convenient art gallery so you don't have to remember all the chapters where the illustrations were just to see them again! Also I'm still working on one more piece of art and have a concept for another piece of art that will both end up on this page. This chapter also contains my playlists for this fic at the bottom. Please let me know if any of the links don't work!

Last updated August 27, 2016.

**Fanart**

Without further ado, let's start with the fanart I got from Aze aka trusty-mccoolguy!

**End of Fic Art**

Here's what Psii looks like when he's piloting the Hull Crusher.

[](http://imgur.com/ImoY8qX)

**Chapter Art**

Chapter 1: Sollux's prophetic daymare.

Chapter 22: Your frantic flight toward the escape pods would have looked hilarious in any other situation, with Mituna dangling from your hand like a flag and an entire game of Snake worth of electronic effluvia trailing after you down the hallway.

This one is my favorite!

[](http://imgur.com/9WiX9Vn)

[Here's the full view of the drawing.](http://imgur.com/fVN5wtJ)

Chapter 23: “Ehehehe hahahahaha suck my wriggling bulge platonically, Princess Slugfuck! We’re free! We’re freeeeeeeeee!” Mituna’s version of victoriously pumping his fists in the air involves both middle fingers. You approve.

[](http://imgur.com/1CiOIiz)

Chapter 43: Here's what Mituna will look like in his shades (a doodle from earlier that I only just scanned):

[](http://imgur.com/rTQt0nM)

And here are Mituna and Sollux in their current outfits plus the shades they didn't actually have yet in Chapter 43.

[](http://imgur.com/gprF3G5)  


MT looks like a rock star. *cough Mick Jagger cough*

Sollux looks like a nerd.

Chapter 50: Shitwagon

[](http://imgur.com/by53yBm)  


Chapter 51: The Imperial Siege Vessel Hull Crusher

[](http://imgur.com/FABOy17)   
[](http://imgur.com/yFKEQSm)   
[](http://imgur.com/IRxHBSt)   
[](http://imgur.com/W6EnovZ)   
[](http://imgur.com/wIMG763)   
[](http://imgur.com/VYRPbNq)   
[](http://imgur.com/J4r9mdu)

Chapter 52: “What.” It’s too early for this. You blink, momentarily sidetracked as you notice all the crayons and paper scattered across the countertop. MT, Dirk and some of the new ex-Helmsmen who really don’t take themselves seriously either are all standing or floating cross-legged beside the counter, industriously doodling and coloring in bright colors with nearly forgotten bowls of soup floating beside their heads. Clearly the actual food didn’t fit on the counter.

**Playlists**

Old Fart Tuna's Playlist!  
[Surfaris – Wipe Out](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p13yZAjhU0M)  
[Blood Sweat and Tears – And When I Die](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS-gwb8eSc0)  
[Led Zeppelin – Bring it On Home](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS57EuE_8NE)  
[The Ventures –Caravan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnekFd6_ABc) (a version that is longer than I'd like but this was the best I could find)  
[Perez Prado – Guaglione](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbUWEN9dqPE)  
[Steppenwolf – Born to be Wild](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMbATaj7Il8)

Sollux Playlist!   
[ Danger – 19H11](http://www.thesixtyone.com/s/3BC7Jxz7vBm/) or if that link doesn’t work, [try this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsjXP7jWK0k)  
[DS1 – I DNT KNW ](https://soundcloud.com/terrorhythm/ds1-i-dnt-knw)  
[Paper Sailboat – Dead Battery](http://www.thesixtyone.com/s/8G1MmSandWS/) or if that link doesn’t work, [try this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_mfU2pFPK4)  
[DDR – Xenon](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDVkDVcrWy0)  
[Yoann Feynmann x Monomotion – Danger Preview](https://soundcloud.com/fakemusicrec/yoann-feynman-x-monomotion-danger-preview)  
[Kfox – Cruisin’ in my UFO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dW9XR9ZF_Y)


	62. Q & A

Ask me questions about the characters in the comments and I'll post answers here! I may also go back and add to stuff I already answered if I think of more to say. Feel free to comment and ask questions even if it's one year from now! I'll do my best to answer even if I can't quite remember where I was going by then.

Last updated September 2, 2016.

 **Q by linguisticSwordsman:** please let karkat be an inspirational leader and sollux his right hand man, so mituna can feel old and nostalgic and like a strong slap of deja vu

 **A:** That sort of thing is not going to happen right away. Karkat is still going to be uneasy and defensive about his blood color at first, even though hes technically been outed by the Empire already and he's tired of hiding. Also he has no confidence in himself (he credits his survival on CAGV up to this point on Tavros, dumb luck, and sheer stubborn refusal to die rather than any real strength on his part). He'll be like 'NOPE NOPE I want nothing to do with leadership I'm a fuckup I'm useless and I have no powers' for a while before he really finds where his skills fit into this revolution.

However he will have a talent for languages, especially all the swears. He is Psii's 5TAR PUPIIL. Heaven help us all when Karkat becomes the communications officer.

 **Q by GreyNoise:** How many languages does Ψ know anyway? Also, whatever happened to Troll Chef Guy?

 **A:** Psii likes to pick up on as many languages as he can as soon as he meets sentient aliens on a planet that was previously unknown to the Alternian Empire. I haven't actually decided how many kinds of sentient aliens he's met / the Empire knows about but we've at least seen Prospitian and Dersian Carapacians, Denizens, Humans, various kinds of imp (and they probably have a lot of dialects), and Horrorterrors.

Earth was a treasure trove for Psii because there is so much cultural variety. Since he first came across them humans have kept him busy for centuries. Psii would not have learned every single language on Earth and is probably still learning some languages for fun. He would have started with languages with the most native speakers and worked his way down with occasional detours into languages that were grammatically similar enough to ones that he already knew to make them easy. The first Earth language he learned was probably Mandarin. Between English, Hindi, Russian, Spanish, French, and Arabic that probably covers most of the surface area of the planet. (I'm not much of an expert on the dominant languages in sub-Saharan Africa other than stuff that was left over by colonialization, someone help me out here. Swahili?) Japanese was not too hard to learn after Mandarin.

At the moment I can't remember if I put Leprichauns on Swindler's Mark but they must be around somewhere in the universe if I haven't. The same goes for Nakodiles, Salamanders, Turtles and uh... I forget what was on Jade's planet but you get the gist. There are Cherubs out there but there are very few scattered far and wide across the universe so it's hard to find and get to know any of them. Psii probably knows of their existence but I'm not sure he would have met enough of them or seen enough of their culture to know much about their language.

So maybe he's around a hundred languages now?

MATH TIME. I am an engineer and also a nerd.

Let's see.... if he finds aliens with enough different languages, he can pick up a language with decent fluency in two years, and he's been around for a million sweeps then the maximum he possibly could have learned is about a million languages.

However space is vast and the number of types of aliens he's met is the limiting factor. If he's visited millions of stars and out of those, thousands have planets with life on them, and out of those only tens have sentient life on them averaging ten languages each then a hundred or a couple hundred languages makes sense throughout his lifetime.

As for Shitwagon, he's been roped into the makeshift medical team for the time being. After things are more under control there he's going to have a lot of cooking to do. Also Waggon takes on the substation trolls as his sous chefs. That helps take a lot of the burden off his shoulders cooking for an increasing number of people.

 **Q by Cuddle+Lover:** does Darkleer ever find Signs bubble? does Psii? does that old fart gold bar die? do we get a tearful and swear filled reuion of Tuna to Kanny?

 **A:** Psii isn't going to be around much longer (maybe another couple sweeps?) because he's OLD and the Condesce isn't recharging him anymore, but he's more than okay with that. I might write a short epilogue for him. I haven't really decided whether he gets to meet Signless again while he's still alive or only after he's a ghost but he'll get there sooner rather than later. Sollux is still working on his end of the navigation program to investigate the largest dream bubbles and help Psii find the place he's looking for. Darkleer also eventually finds Signless's bubble but he may need some help from Psii on that front.


End file.
